tii(>:mas  (  ai;i.vi.i;. 
From  a  Photograph  by  Elliott  d:  Fry. 


THOMAS    CARLYLE 


BY 

MOKCUKE   D.  CONWAY 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  FRANKLIN  SQUARE 

1881 


, .  »  ./ .  r » « • 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1881,  by 

Harper  &  Brothers, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  "Washington. 

f 

All  rights  resened. 


PR  H^  S  3 

(Apr  I  tJ 


PEEFACE. 


Early  in  the  year  1863,  when  I  first  visited  Eng- 
land, Emerson  gave  me  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
Thomas  Carljle,  which  at  once  secured  for  me  a  gra- 
cious reception  and  kindly  entertainment  from  the 
author  and  his  wife  at  Chelsea.  It  was  their  custom 
to  receive  their  friends  in  the  evening,  and  I  was 
invited  to  join  their  circle  as  often  as  it  might  be 
convenient  to  me.  As  time  went  on,  this  evening 
circle  at  Carlyle's  became  smaller,  and  many  a  time 
I  was  the  only  guest  present.  I  was  also  invited  by 
Carlyle  to  share  his  walks,  after  he  had  given  up  the 
horseback  exercise  he  used  to  take.  These  afternoon 
walks  were  long,  generally  through  Kensington  Gar- 
dens, Ilyde  Park,  and  even  into  Piccadilly.  I  was 
careful  never  to  interrupt  his  hours  of  literary  labor, 
and  always  to  obey  Mrs.  Carlyle's  kindly  intimations 
as  to  his  habits  and  exigencies.  My  relations  with 
the  memorable  home  at  Chelsea  were  always,  and  to 

503233 


VI  PREFACE. 

the  last,  very  pleasant,  never  marred  by  any  incident 
or  word  to  be  thought  of  now  with  regret. 

This  little  book  which  I  now  send  out  to  the  world 
was  veritably  written  by  Carlyle  himself.  However 
inadequately  transcribed  and  conveyed,  these  pages 
do  faithfully  follow  impressions  made  by  his  own 
word  and  spirit  upon  my  mind  during  an  intercourse 
of  many  years.  Nothing  has  been  imported  into 
them  from  other  publications  which  have  appeared 
since  his  death.  The  letters  of  Carlyle,  and  that 
charming  one  written  by  Emerson  just  after  his  first 
visit  to  him  which  is  added  to  them,  have  been  in- 
trusted to  me  by  my  friend  Alexander  Ireland — au- 
thor of  an  excellent  bibliographical  work  on  the 
writings  of  Hazlitt,  Lamb,  and  Leigh  Hunt  —  the 
valued  friend  of  both  Carlyle  and  Emerson.  The 
suppressions  indicated  in  those  letters  are  of.  matters 
properly  private  —  as,  indeed,  are  various  withheld 
notes  of  my  own— and  not  things  omitted  with  any 
theoretical  purpose. 

I  have  written  out  my  notes  and  my  memories 
with  the  man  still  vividly  before  me,  and,  as  it  were, 
still  speaking ;  and,  I  must  venture  to  add,  it  is  a 
man  I  can  by  no  means  identify  with  any  image  that 
can  be  built  up  out  of  his  "  Keminiscences."  I 
do  not  wish  to  idealize  Carlyle,  but  cannot  admit 


PREFACE.  Vll 

that  the  outcries  of  a  broken  heart  should  be  ac- 
cepted as  the  man's  true  voice,  or  that  measurements 
of  men  and  memories  as  seen  through  burning  tears 
should  be  recorded  as  characteristic  of  his  heart  or 
judgment.  This  sketch  of  mine  is  written  and  pub- 
lished in  loyalty  to  the  memory  of  those  two  at 
Chelsea  whom,  amid  whatever  differences  of  con- 
viction, I  honored  and  loved. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

Thomas  Carlyle — from  a  Photograph  by  Elliott 

AND  Fry,  London Frontispiece 

Birthplace  OF  Thomas  Carlyle  .     .     .     .    To  face     16 

Carlyle's  Mother. 29 

Fac-simile  of  Carlyle's  Handwriting     .    To  face     4G 
Choir  of  Abbey  Church,  Haddington,  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle's Grave  in  the  Foreground     .     .    To  face     54 
Room  in  which  Carlyle  was  Born    .     .         "       138 

Craigenputtoch "       140 

Mrs.  Thomas  Carlyle "       142 

Early  Portrait  of  Thomas  Carlyle  .     .         "       152 


Part  I. 
THOMAS    CAKLYLE 


THOMAS   CARLYLE. 


I. 

The  real  record  of  Carlyle's  life  will  be  a  long 
task,  employing  not  only  many  human  hands,  but 
even  the  hand  of  Time  itself. 

While  writing  his  "History  of  Friedrich  II.,'* 
Carlyle  had  prepared — as,  indeed,  the  growth  of  the 
work  had  demanded — a  special  study  at  the  top  of 
his  house  in  Chelsea,  in  which  only  that  paper,  book, 
or  picture  was  admitted  which  was  in  some  way  con- 
nected with  the  subject  in  hand.  One  side  of  the 
room  was  covered  from  floor  to  ceiling  with  books ; 
two  others  were  adorned  with  pictures  of  persons  or 
battles;  and  through  these  books  and  pictures  was 
distributed  the  man  he  was  trying  to  put  together 
in  comprehensible  shape.  But  even  more  widely 
was  Carlyle  himself  distributed.  In  what  part  of 
the  earth  have  not  his  lines  gone  out  and  his  labors 
extended  ?  On  how  many  hearts  and  minds,  on  how 
many  lives,  has  he  engraved   passages  which  are 


14  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

transcripts  of  his  own  life,  without  which  it  can 
never  be  fully  told  ?  To  report  this  one  life,  pre- 
cious contributions  must  be  brought  from  the  lives 
of  Goethe,  Emerson,  Jeffrey,  Brewster,  Sterling, 
Leigh  Hunt,  Mill,  Mazzini,  Margaret  Fuller,  Harriet 
Martineau,  Faraday.  But  how  go  on  with  the  long 
catalogue  ?  At  its  end,  could  that  be  reached,  there 
would  remain  the  equally  important  memories  of 
lives  less  known,  from  which  in  the  future  may 
come  incidents  casting  fresh  light  upon  this  central 
figure  of  two  generations ;  and,  were  all  told,  time 
alone  can  bring  the  perspective  through  which  his 
genius  and  character  can  be  estimated.  In  one 
sense,  Carlyle  was  as  a  city  set  upon  a  hill,  that  can- 
not be  hid;  in  another,  he  was  an  "open  secret," 
hid  by  the  very  simplicity  of  his  unconscious  dis- 
guises, the  frank  perversities  whose  meaning  could 
be  known  only  by  those  close  enough  to  hear  the 
heart-beat  beneath  them ;  and  many  who  have  fan- 
cied that  they  had  him  rightly  labelled  with  some 
moody  utterance,  or  safely  pigeon-holed  in  some  out- 
break of  a  soul  acquainted  with  grief,  will  be  found 
to  have  measured  the  oak  by  its  mistletoe. 

Those  who  have  listened  to  the  wonderful  conver- 
sation of  Carlyle  know  well  its  impressiveness  and 
its  charm :  the  sympathetic  voice  now  softening  to 
the  very  gentlest,  tenderest  tone  as  it  searched  far 
into   some  sad  life,  little  known  or  regarded,  or 


THOMAS   CAELTLE.  15 

perhaps  evil  spoken  of,  and  found  there  traits 
to  be  admired,  or  signs  of  nobleness, — then  rising 
through  all  melodies  in  rehearsing  the  deeds  of  he- 
roes; anon  breaking  out  with  illumined  thunders 
against  some  special  baseness  or  falsehood,  till  one 
trembled  before  the  Sinai  smoke  and  flame,  and 
seemed  to  hear  the  tables  break  once  more  in  his 
heart :  all  these,  accompanied  bj  the  mounting,  fad- 
ing fires  in  his  cheek,  the  light  of  the  eye,  now  se- 
rene as  heaven's  blue,  now  flashing  with  wrath,  or 
presently  snflused  w^ith  laughter,  made  the  outer 
symbols  of  a  genius  so  unique  that  to  me  it  had 
been  unimaginable  had  I  not  known  its  presence 
and  power.  His  conversation  was  a  spell;  when  I 
had  listened  and  gone  into  the  darkness,  the  enchant- 
ment continued;  sometimes  I  could  not  sleep  till 
the  vivid  thoughts  and  narratives  were  noted  in 
writing.  It  is  mainly  from  these  records  of  conver- 
sations that  the  following  pages  are  written  out,  with 
addition  of  some  other  materials  obtained  by  per- 
sonal inquiries  made  in  Scotland  and  in  London.  I 
realized  many  years  ago  that  my  notes  contained 
matter  that  might  some  day  be  useful,  especially  to 
my  American  countrymen,  in  forming  a  just  esti- 
mate and  judgment  of  one  whose  expressions  were 
often  unwelcome  ;  and  this  conviction  has  made  me 
increasingly  careful,  as  the  years  went  on,  to  remark 
any  variations  of  his  views,  and  his  responses  to  crit- 


] 


16  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

icisms  made  so  frequently  upon  statements  of  his 
which  had  been  resented.  I  do  not  in  the  least 
modify,  nor  shall  I  set  forth  these  things  in  such 
order  or  relation  as  to  illustrate  any  theory  of  my 
own.  He  who  spoke  his  mind  through  life  must  so 
speak  on,  though  he  be  dead. 

II. 

Thomas  Carlyle  was  born  on  the  4th  of  Decem- 
ber, 1795,  at  Ecclefechan,  Dumfriesshire.  The  small 
stone  house  still  stands.  It  was  a  favorite  saying 
of  his  that  great  men  are  not  born  among  fools. 
"There  was  Kobert  Burns,"  he  said  one  day;  "I 
used  often  to  hear  from  old  people  in  Scotland  of 
the  good  sense  and  wise  conversation  around  that 
little  fireside  where  Burns  listened  as  a  child.  Not- 
ably there  was  a  man  named  Murdoch  who  remem- 
bered all  that;  and  I  have  the  like  impression  about 
the  early  life  of  most  of  the  notable  men  and  women 
I  have  heard  or  read  of.  When  a  great  soul  rises 
up,  it  is  generally  in  a  place  where  there  has  been 
much  hidden  worth  and  intelligence  at  work  for  a 
long  time.  The  vein  runs  on,  as  it  were,  beneath 
the  surface  for  a  generation  or  so,  then  bursts  into 
the  light  in  some  man  of  genius,  and  oftenest  that 
seems  to  be  the  end  of  it."  Carlyle  was  thinking  of 
other  persons  than  himself,  but  there  are  few  lives 
that  could  better  point  his  thought.    Nothing  could 


UIKTHPLACE    OF    THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  17 

be  more  incongruous  with  the  man  and  his  life  than 
the  attempt  once  made  to  get  up  a  Carlyle  "pedi- 
gree." 

But  the  vigor  of  the  lowlj  stock  was  proved  by 
the  strong  individuality  it  steadily  developed,  and 
in  none  more  notably  than  the  father  of  Thomas. 
The  humble  stone-mason  certainly  "builded  better 
than  he  knew,"  though  he  lived  long  enough  to  hear 
his  son's  name  pronounced  with  honor  throughout 
the  kingdom.  An  aged  Scotch  minister  who  knew 
him  well  told  me  that  old  James  Carlyle  was  "  a 
character."  "  Earnest,  energetic,  of  quick  intellect, 
and  in  earlier  life  somewhat  passionate  and  pugna- 
cious, he  was  not  just  the  man  to  be  popular  among 
his  rustic  neighbors  of  Annandale ;  but  they  respect- 
ed his  pronounced  individuality,  felt  his  strong  will, 
and  his  terse,  epigrammatic  sayings  were  remem- 
bered and  repeated  many  years  after  his  death 
(1832).  In  the  later  years  of  his  life  he  became  a 
more  decidedly  religious  character,  and  the  natural 
asperities  of  his  character  and  manner  were  much 
softened." 

Mr.  James  Eoutledge,  in  an  Indian  periodical, 
Mooherjee^s  Magazine^  October,  1872,  says : 

"I  was  interested  enough  in  Mr.  Carlyle  the 
younger  to  make  a  special  tour,  some  years  ago,  to 
learn  something  of  Mr.  Carlyle  the  elder ;  and  from 
what  I  gathered  the  reader  may  be  pleased  with  a 


18  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

few  scraps,  as  characteristic  of  tlie  scliool  of  *  Sartor 
Eesartus.'  Mr.  Carljle's  landlord  was  one  General 
Sharpe,  of  whom  little  is  now  known,  though  he  was 
a  great  man  in  those  days.  On  one  occasion  James 
Carlyle  and  he  had  a  quarrel,  and  James  was  heard 
to  say,  in  a  voice  of  thunder, '  I  tell  thee  what,  Mat- 
thew Sharpe ' — a  mode  of  salutation  that  doubtless 
astonished  General  Sharpe;  but  it  was  'old  James 
Carljle's  way,'  and  was  not  to  be  altered  for  any 
General  in  existence.  There  was  much  in  the  old 
man's  manner  of  speaking  that  never  failed  to  at- 
tract attention.  A  gentleman  resident  in  the  local- 
ity told  me  that  he  remembered  meeting  him  one 
very  stormy  day,  and  saying, '  Here's  a  fearful  day, 
James ;'  which  drew  forth  the  response, '  Man,  it's  a' 
that ;  it's  roaring  doon  our  glen  like  the  cannon  o' 
Quebec'  My  informant  added,  'I  never  could  for- 
get that  sentence.'  James  had  also  a  wondrous  pow- 
er of  fixing  upon  characteristic  names  for  all  man- 
ner of  persons,  and  nailing  his  names  to  the  individ- 
uals for  life.  Samuel  Johnson  was  '  Surly  Sam,'  and 
so  on — a  gift  which  has  come  among  us  in  a  more 
livable  form  from  the  pen  of  his  son.  Mr.  Carlyle 
was  a  stern  Presbyterian — a  Burgher ;  held  no  terms 
with  prelacy  or  any  other  ungodly  offshoot  from  the 
Woman  of  Babylon,  but  clung  to  the  '  auld  Buke,' 
without  note  or  comment,  as  his  only  guide  to  heav- 
en.   He  was  one  of  the  elders  of  his  church  when 


THOMAS   CAKLTLE.  19 

its  pastor,  having  received  a  call  from  a  churcli 
where  his  stipend  would  be  better  than  that  of  Ec- 
clefechan,  applied  for  leave  to  remove.  The  church 
met,  and  lamentation  was  made  for  the  irreparable 
loss.  After  much  nonsense  had  been  spoken,  Mr. 
Carljle's  opinion  was  asked.  '  Pay  the  hireling  his 
wages  and  let  him  go,'  said  the  old  man ;  and  it  was 
done.  Mr.  Carljle  had  a  thorough  contempt  for 
any  one  who  said,  'I  can't.'  'Impossible'  was  not 
in  his  vocabulary.  Once,  during  harvest- time,  he 
was  taken  seriously  ill.  l^o  going  to  the  field,  Mr. 
Carlyle,  for  weeks  to  come:  water- gruel,  doctor's 
bottles,  visiting  parson,  special  prayers  —  poor  old 
James  Carlyle!  Pshaw!  James  was  found  crawling 
to  the  field  early  next  morning,  but  still  an  idler 
among  workers.  He  looked  at  the  corn,  provoking- 
ly  ripe  for  the  sickle ;  and  then,  stamping  his  foot 
fiercely  to  the  ground,  he  said, '  I'll  gar  mysel'  work 
at  t'  harvest.'  And  he  did  work  at  it  like  a  man. 
On  one  occasion  a  reverend  gentleman  had  been  fa- 
voring the  congregation  of  Mr.  Carlyle's  church  with 
a  terrible  description  of  the  last  judgment.  James 
listened  to  him  calmly ;  but  when  the  sermon  was 
finished,  he  came  out  of  his  pew,  and,  placing  him- 
self before  the  reverend  gentleman  and  all  the  con- 
gregation, he  said,  aloud,  'Ay,  ye  may  thump  and 
stare  till  yer  een  start  frae  their  sockets,  but  you'll 
na  gar  me  believe  such  stuff  as  that.' 


20  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

"  If  the  reader  will  now  go  back  with  me  to  those 
days,  and  view  for  a  few  minutes  the  little  farm  at 
Mainhill,  after  the  fair,  honest,  and  well-earned  hours 
of  evening  rest  have  fully  arrived,  we  shall,  in  all 
probability,  find  Mr.  Carlyle  reading  from  the  Bible 
— not  for  fashion's  sake,  not  to  be  seen  and  praised  by 
men,  but  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction 
in  righteousness ;  and  his  children  will  be  listening, 
as  children  should.  Refused  his  proper  place  in  so- 
ciety for  want  of  learning,  we  shall  see  this  brave 
old  man  doing  the  next  best  thing  to  moulding  the 
age — training  his  children  to  do  that  which  he  felt  a 
power  within  him  capable  of  performing,  but  for 
which  the  means — the  mechanical  means,  the  verb 
and  pronoun  kind  of  thing — were  denied.  Such  was 
the  father,  and  such  the  earliest  school  of  Thomas 
Carlyle." 

Of  the  many  anecdotes  told  of  this  elder  Carlyle, 
one  seems  to  be  characteristic  not  only  of  the  man, 
but  of  the  outer  environment  amid  which  Thomas 
passed  his  earlier  life.  On  the  occasion  of  a  mar- 
riage of  one  of  the  sons,  the  younger  members  of  the 
household  proposed  that  a  coat  of  paint  should  be 
given  the  house ;  but  the  old  man  resisted  this  scheme 
for  covering  the  plain  walls  with  the  varnish  of  false- 
hood. An  attempt  was  made  by  the  majority  to  set 
aside  his  will,  but,  unfortunately,  old  Mr.  Carlyle  was 
at  home  when  the  painters  arrived,  and  planting  him- 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  21 

self  in  the  doorway,  demanded  what  they  wanted. 
They  replied  that  they  "  cam'  tae  pent  the  house." 
"Then,"  returned  the  old  man,  "ye  can  jist  slent 
the  bog  wi'  yer  ash-baket  feet,  for  ye'll  pit  nane  o' 
yer  glaur  on  ma  door."  The  painters  needed  no 
translation  of  this  remark,  and  "slent  the  bog" — i.  e., 
went  their  ways.  Paint  to  the  sturdy  old  stone- 
mason meant  simply  so  much  slime;  for  it  would 
appear  that  the  Latin  clara  and  French  glaire  are 
represented  in  Scotland  by  darts  and  glaur — equiv- 
alents for  mud,  and  more  appropriately  used  for 
mud  of  a  viscous  character.  I  have  sometimes 
thouo^ht  that  if  the  father  had  been  able  to  admit 
those  house-painters,  the  son's  destiny  might  have 
been  different.  His  dislike  of  rhyme  and  poetic 
measures,  after  showing  that  he  could  excel  in  the 
same,  and  all  literary  architecture,  had  in  it  an  echo 
of  that  paternal  horror  of  "glaur."  He  scented  a 
falsehood  from  afar.  Some  one  spoke  of  "  England's 
j^restigeP  "  Do  you  remember  what  prestige  means  ?" 
asked  he,  sharply :  "  it  is  the  Latin  word  for  a  lie." 

As  James  Carlyle  acquired  more  means  he  added 
to  the  small  house  in  Ecclefechan  a  further  building, 
which  now  stands  behind  the  other  in  what  is  still 
called  "  Carlyle's  Close."  Afterwards  he  took  to 
farming,  and  became  the  possessor  of  the  neighbor- 
ing farm  and  homestead  of  over  two  hundred  acres, 
called  Scotsbrig.     For  some  years  previously  he  had 


22  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

become  more  of  an  architect  than  a  stone-mason. 
The  stone-mason's  craft  often  furnished  Carljle 
with  his  metaphors,  and  he  always  liad  a  special 
horror  of  architectural  shams.  Once  as  we  were 
walking  together  he  remarked  the  flimsiness  of  some 
house- walls  just  going  up.  "Every  brick  in  them 
is  a  lie.  A  necessary  part,  I  suppose,  of  the  superla- 
tive ugliness  of  so  many  people  crowding  together. 
The  cities  are  all  cabbaging  out  in  this  way.  The 
house  I  live  in  (at  Chelsea)  was  built  by  honest  men. 
The  brick  and  mortar  have  hardened  together  with 
time,  and  made  a  wall  which  is  one  solid  stone,  and 
it  will  stand  there  till  Gabriel's  trump  blows  it 
down." 

III. 

In  order  to  introduce  here,  as  well  as  my  notes 
and  memory  enable  me,  some  of  Carlyle's  own  ram- 
bling reminiscences  of  those  who  were  the  presiding 
destinies  of  his  early  life,  it  will  be  necessary  to  pass 
to  a  comparatively  recent  period,  and  attend  him  to 
an  eminence  in  his  life  from  which  those  young 
years  were  beheld  in  natural  perspective.  And  my 
reader  must  pardon  me  for  now  and  then  turning 
into  a  by-way  on  our  road. 

It  was  in  the  evening  of  the  day  when  Carlyle  was 
inaugurated  Lord  Kector  of  Edinburgh  University 
that  he  himself  told  me  most  fully  the  story  of  his 
early  life,  and  of  his  struggles  in  that  ancient  city 


THOMAS   CAELTLE.  23 

which  had  now  decorated  itself  in  his  honor.  That 
day  was  the  culmination  of  his  personal  history.  ]^o 
pen  has  yet  described  the  events  of  that  day,  and  the 
main  fact  of  it,  in  their  significance  or  picturesque- 
ness.  jS'or  can  that  be  wondered  at ;  the  background 
against  which  they  stood  out  were  the  weary  trials, 
the  long  un watched  studies,  the  poverty  and  want, 
amid  which  the  little  boy  of  fourteen  began  to  climb 
the  rugged  path  which  ended  on  this  height.  When 
on  that  bright  day  (the  2d  of  April,  1866)  Carlyle 
entered  the  theatre  in  Edinburgh,  the  scene  was  one 
for  which  no  memory  of  the  old  university  could 
have  prepared  him.  Beside  him  walked  the  venera- 
ble Sir  David  Brewster,  fourteen  years  his  senior, 
who  first  recognized  his  ability,  and  first  gave  him 
literary  work  to  do.  The  one  now  Principal,  the 
other  Lord  Kector,  they  walked  forward  in  their 
gold-laced  robes  of  office,  while  the  professors,  the 
students,  the  ladies,  stood  up,  cheering,  waving  their 
hats,  books,  handkerchiefs,  as  if  some  wild  ecstasy 
were  sweeping  over  the  assembly.  Who  were  these 
around  him  ?  The  old  man  sat  and  scanned  for  a 
little  the  faces  before  him.  His  eye  alights  on  Hux- 
ley, and  not  far  away  is  the  face  of  his  friend  Tyn- 
dall,  all  sunshine.  Another  and  another  face  from 
London,  a  score  of  aged  faces  that  bring  up  memo- 
ries from  this  and  that  quiet  retreat  of  Scotland,  and 
the  occasion  begins  to  weave  its  potent  influences 


24  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

around  the  man  who  had  never  faced  audience  since, 
some  twentj-six  years  before,  he  had  celebrated  "  He- 
roes," and  among  them  some  less  heroic  than  this 
new  Lord  Eector.  On  that  last  occasion,  in  the  Ed- 
wards Street  Institute,  London,  Carlyle  brought  a 
manuscript,  and  found  it  much  in  his  way.  On  the 
next  evening  he  brought  some  notes,  but  these  also 
tripped  him  up,  till  he  left  them.  The  rest  of  the 
lectures  were  given  without  a  note,  simply  like  his 
conversation,  and  they  required  very  little  alteration 
when  they  came  to  be  printed.  For  this  Edinburgh 
occasion,  also,  Carlyle  at  first  thought  of  writing 
something ;  he  made  out  some  headings  and  a  few 
notes,  and  carried  them  in  his  pocket  to  the  theatre, 
but  he  did  not  look  at  them. 

What  that  address  really  was  no  one  can  imagine 
who  has  only  read  it.  Throughout,  it  was  phenom- 
enal, like  some  spiritualized  play  of  the  elements. 
Ere  he  began,  Carlyle,  much  to  the  amusement  of 
the  students,  shook  himself  free  of  the  gold -laced 
gown ;  but  it  was  not  many  minutes  before  he  had 
laid  aside  various  other  conventionalities :  the  grand 
sincerity,  the  drolleries,  the  auroral  flashes  of  mysti- 
cal intimation,  the  lightnings  of  scorn  for  things  low 
and  base — all  of  these  severally  taking  on  physiog- 
nomical expression  in  word,  tone,  movement  of  the 
head,  color  of  the  face,  really  seemed  to  bring  before 
us  a  being  whose  physical  form  was  purely  a  trans- 
parency of  thought  and  feeling. 


THOMAS   CAIJLYLE.  25 

What  a  figure  stood  tliere  before  us !  The  form, 
stately  though  slender  and  somewhat  bent,  conveyed 
the  impression  of  a  powerful  organization  ;  the  head, 
well  curved  and  long,  moving  but  rarely  from  side 
to  side,  then  slowly ;  the  limbs,  never  fidgety,  but- 
tressing, like  quaint  architecture,  the  lofty  head  and 
front  of  the  man :  these  characters  at  once  made 
their  impression.  But  presently  other  and  more 
subtle  characteristics  came  out  on  the  face  and  form 
before  us,  those  which  time  and  fate,  thought  add 
experience,  had  added  to  the  man  which  nature  had 
given  them.  The  rugged  brow,  softened  by  the 
silvered  hair,  had  its  inscriptions  left  by  the  long 
years  of  meditation  and  of  spiritual  sorrow;  the 
delicate  mouth,  whose  satire  was  sympathetic,  never 
curling  the  lip  nor  sinking  to  sarcasm ;  the  blond 
face,  with  its  floating  colors  of  sensibility,  and  the 
large  luminous  eye — these  made  the  outer  image  of 
Carlyle  as  he  stood  and  spake,  when  even  the  gray- 
haired  were  gathered  at  his  feet,  listening  like  chil- 
dren held  by  a  tale  of  "Wonderland. 

"When  Carlyle  sat  down  there  w^as  an  audible 
sound,  as  of  breath  long  held,  by  all  present ;  then  a 
cry  from  the  students,  an  exultation ;  they  rose  up, 
all  arose,  waving  their  arms  excitedly ;  some  pressed 
forward,  as  if  wishing  to  embrace  him,  or  to  clasp 
his  knees ;  others  were  weeping :  what  had  been 
heard  that  day  was  more  than  could  be  reported ;  it 


26  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

was  the  ineffable  spirit  that  went  forth  from  the 
deeps  of  a  great  heart  and  from  the  ages  stored  up 
in  it,  and  deep  answered  unto  deep. 

When,  after  the  address,  Carljle  came  out  to  the 
door,  a  stately  carriage  was  waiting  to  take  him  to 
the  house  of  Mr.  Erskine,  of  Linlathen,  but  he  beg- 
ged to  be  allowed  to  walk.  He  had  no  notion,  how- 
ever, what  that  involved.  No  sooner  did  the  de- 
lighted crowd,  or  friendly  mob,  discover  that  the 
Lord  Rector  was  setting  out  to  walk  through  the 
street  than  they  extemporized  a  procession,  and  fol- 
lowed him,  several  hundred  strong,  with  such  clam- 
orous glorification  that  he  found  it  best  to  take  a 
cab.  As  he  did  so,  he  turned  and  gave  the  rather 
ragged  part  of  the  crowd  a  steady,  compassionate 
look,  and  said,  softly,  as  if  to  himself, "  Poor  fellows ! 
poor  fellows !" 

During  the  dinner  that  evening,  at  which  Mr. 
Erskine  entertained  Lord  leaves.  Dr.  John  Brown, 
and  other  Edinburgh  celebrities,  Carlyle  was  very 
happy,  and  conversed  in  the  finest  humor;  he  en- 
lightened us,  as  I  remember,  about  antiquarian  words 
and  names;  as  that  hy  meant  town,  and  hy-laws 
town-laws ;  wich  meant  the  corner  of  the  mouth,  such 
names  as  Berwick  being  given  to  places  on  creeks 
so  shaped;  glead^  meant  hawk,  and  Gladstone  was 
Hawkstone,  and  so  on.  When  the  ladies  had  retired, 
Carlyle  asked  me  to  go  with  him  to  his  room  in  order 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  27 

to  consult  a  little  about  the  revision  of  his  address  for 
tlie  press.  This  being  arranged  for,  he  lit  his  pipe 
and  fell  into  a  long,  deep  silence.  In  the  reverie 
every  furrow  passed  away  from  his  face ;  all  anxie- 
ties seemed  far  away.  I  saw  his  countenance  as  I 
had  never  seen  it  before — without  any  trace  of  spir- 
itual pain.  The  pathetic  expression  was  overlaid  by 
a  sort  of  quiet  gladness — like  the  soft  evening  glow 
under  which  the  Profile  on  the  IsTew  England  moun- 
tain appears  to  smile ;  there  fell  on  this  great  jutting 
brow  and  grave  face,  whose  very  laughter  was  often 
volcanic  as  its  wrath,  a  sweet  childlike  look.  He 
was,  indeed,  thinking  of  his  childhood. 

"  It  seems  very  strange,"  he  said,  ^'  as  I  look  back 
over  it  all  now — so  far  away — and  the  faces  that 
grew  aged,  and  then  vanished.  A  greater  debt  I 
owe  to  my  father  than  he  lived  long  enough  to  have 
fully  paid  to  him.  He  was  a  very  thoughtful  and 
earnest  kind  of  man,  even  to  sternness.  He  was 
fond  of  reading,  too,  particularly  the  reading  of  the- 
ology. Old  John  Owen,  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
was  his  favorite  author.  He  could  not  tolerate  any- 
thing fictitious  in  books,  and  sternly  forbade  us  to 
spend  our  time  over  the  *  Arabian  Nights' — ^  those 
downright  lies,'  he  called  them.  He  was  grimly  re- 
ligious. I  remember  him  going  into  the  kitchen, 
where  some  servants  were  dancing,  and  reminding 
them  very  emphatically  that  they  were  dancing  on 


28  THOMAS    CARLYLE. 

the  verge  of  a  place  which  no  politeness  ever  pre- 
vented his  mentioning  on  fit  occasion.  He  himself 
walked  as  a  man  in  the  full  presence  of  heaven  and 
hell  and  the  day  of  judgment.  They  were  always 
imminent.  One  evening,  some  people  were  playing 
cards  in  the  kitchen  when  the  bake-house  caught 
fire ;  the  events  were  to  him  as  cause  and  effect,  and 
henceforth  there  was  a  flaming  handwriting  on  our 
walls  against  all  cards.  All  of  w^hich  was  the  hard 
outside  of  a  genuine  veracity  and  earnestness  of 
nature  such  as  I  have  not  found  so  common  among 
men  as  to  think  of  them  in  him  without  respect. 

"My  mother  stands  in  my  memory  as  beautiful 
in  all  that  makes  the  excellence  of  w^oman.  Pious 
and  gentle  she  was,  with  an  unweariable  devotedness 
to  her  family ;  a  loftiness  of  moral  aim  and  religious 
conviction  which  gave  her  presence  and  her  humble 
home  a  certain  graciousness,  and,  even  as  I  see  it 
now,  dignity ;  and  with  it,  too,  a  good  deal  of  wit 
and  originality  of  mind.  No  man  ever  had  better 
opportunities  than  I  for  comprehending,  were  they 
comprehensible,  the  great  deeps  of  a  mother's  love 
for  her  children.  Nearly  my  first  profound  impres- 
sions in  this  world  are  connected  with  the  death  of 
an  infant  sister — an  event  whose  sorrowfulness  was 
made  known  to  me  in  the  inconsolable  grief  of  my 
mother.  For  a  long  time  she  seemed  to  dissolve  in 
tears — only  tears.    For  several  months  not  one  night 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 


29 


CAKLYLE's   MOrHER. 

passed  but  slie  dreamed  of  holding  her  babe  in  her 
arms,  and  clasping  it  to  her  breast.  At  length  one 
morning  she  related  a  change  in  her  dream :  while 
she  held  the  child  in  her  arms  it  had  seemed  to  break 
up  into  small  fragments,  and  so  crumbled  away  and 
vanished.  From  that  night  her  vision  of  the  babe 
and  dream  of  clasping  it  never  returned. 

"  The  only  fault  I  can  remember  in  my  mother 
was  her  being  too  mild  and  peaceable  for  the  planet 
she  lived  in.  When  I  was  sent  to  school,  she  piously 
enjoined  on  me  that  I  should,  under  no  conceivable 
circumstances,  fight  with  any  boy,  nor  resist  any  evil 
done  to  me;  and  her  instructions  were  so  solemn 


30  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

that  for  a  long  time  I  was  accustomed  to  submit  to 
every  kind  of  injustice,  simply  for  her  sake.  It  was 
a  sad  mistake.  Wlien  it  was  practically  discovered 
that  I  would  not  defend  myself,  every  kind  of  indig- 
nity was  put  upon  me,  and  my  life  was  made  utterly 
miserable.  Fortunately  the  strain  was  too  great. 
One  day  a  big  boy  was  annoying  me,  when  it  oc- 
curred to  my  mind  that  existence  under  such  con- 
ditions was  not  supportable;  so  I  slipped  off  my 
wooden  clog,  and  therewith  suddenly  gave  that  boy 
a  blow  on  the  seat  of  honor  which  sent  him  sprawl- 
ing on  face  and  stomach  in  a  convenient  mass  of 
mud  and  water.  I  shall  never  forget  the  burthen 
that  rolled  off  me  at  that  moment.  I  never  had  a 
more  heart-felt  satisfaction  than  in  witnessing  the 
consternation  of  that  contemporary.  It  proved  to 
be  a  measure  of  peace,  also ;  from  that  time  I  was 
troubled  by  the  boys  no  more." 

Carlyle's  mother  died  in  1853.  Dr.  John  Car- 
lyle  told  me  that  although  the  subjects  upon  which 
Thomas  wrote  were  to  a  large  extent  foreign  to  her, 
she  read  all  of  his  works  published  up  to  the  time  of 
her  death  with  the  utmost  care;  and  his  "History 
of  the  French  Eevolution,"  particularly,  she  read 
and  reread  until  she  had  comprehended  it.  With  a 
critical  acumen  known  only  to  mothers,  she  excepted 
"Wilhelm  Meister"  from  her  pious  reprobation  of 
novel-reading  (not  failing,  however,  to  express  de- 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  31 

cided  opinions  concerning  the  moral  character  of 
Philina  and  otliers).  At  first  she  was  somewhat  dis- 
turbed by  the  novel  religious  views  encountered  in 
these  books,  but  she  found  her  son  steadfast  and 
earnest,  and  cared  for  no  more.  I  have  heard  that 
it  was  to  her  really  inquiring  mind  that  Carlyle 
owed  his  first  questioning  of  the  conventional  Eng- 
lish opinion  of  the  character  of  Cromwell. 

There  was  something  indescribably  touching  and 
even  thrilling  in  the  tones  of  passionate  longing  with 
which  Carlyle  spoke  of  his  parents.  It  was  a  Lord 
Rector  talking  about  poor  and  comparatively  igno- 
rant w^orkpeople  long  dead,  but  there  was  a  love  in 
Carlyle  passing  the  love  of  women :  at  that  moment 
he  w^ould  have  flung  to  the  winds  all  the  honors 
which  the  world  had  heaped  upon  him  for  one  more 
day  in  the  old  home  at  Scotsbrig  with  his  father — 
one  hour  of  the  old  nestling  at  the  heart  of  his  moth- 
er. So  long  as  either  of  them  lived,  he  (as  I  knew 
on  good  information)  had  been  constant  in  his  plead- 
ings for  permission  to  contribute  something  to  make 
their  age  happier;  but  they  needed  only  his  love, 
and  they  chose  well — a  treasure  not  measurable. 

"As  I  was  compelled,"  continued  Carlyle,  "to 
quietly  abandon  my  mother's  non-resistant  lessons, 
80  I  had  to  modify  my  father's  rigid  rulings  against 
books  of  fiction.  I  remember  few  happier  days 
than  those  in  which  I  ran  off  into  the  fields  to  read 


32        '  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

'Eoderick  Random,'  and  how  inconsolable  I  was 
that  I  could  not  get  the  second  volume.  To  this  day 
I  know  of  few  writers  equal  to  Smollett.  Humphry 
Clinker  is  precious  to  nae  now  as  he  was  in  those 
years.  Nothing  by  Dante  or  any  one  else  surpasses 
in  pathos  the  scene  where  Humphry  goes  into  the 
smithy  made  for  him  in  the  old  house,  and  whilst 
he  is  heating  the  iron,  the  poor  woman  who  has  lost 
her  husband,  and  is  deranged,  comes  and  talks  to 
him  as  to  her  husband.  'John,  they  told  me  yon 
were  dead.  How  glad  I  am  you  have  come !'  And 
Humphry's  tears  fall  down  and  bubble  on  the  hot 
iron. 

"Ah,  well,  it  would  be  a  long  story.  As  with 
every  'studious  boy'  of  that  time  and  region,  the 
destiny  prepared  for  me  was  the  nearly  inevitable 
kirk.  And  so  I  came  here  to  Edinburgh,  about  four- 
teen, and  went  to  hard  work.  And  still  harder  work 
it  was  when  the  University  had  been  passed  by,  the 
hardest  being  to  find  work.  Nearly  the  only  com- 
panion I  had  was  poor  Edward  Irving,  then  one  of 
the  most  attractive  of  youths ;  we  had  been  to  the 
same  Annan  school,  but  he  was  three  years  my  senior. 
Here,  and  for  a  long  time  after,  destiny  threw  us  a 
good  deal  together." 

(An  old  Scotch  gentleman  who  knew  the  two  in 
those  Edinburgh  years  told  me  that  both  were  vehe- 
mently argumentative ;  also  that  though  Carlyle  was 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  33 

the  better  reasoner,  Irving  generally  got  the  best  of 
the  argument,  since  he  was  apt  to  knock  Carljle 
down  with  his  fist  when  himself  driven  into  logical 
distress.  This  was  humorously  said,  and  no  doubt  a 
slight  exaggeration  of  the  facts.) 

"  Yery  little  help  did  I  get  from  anybody  in  those 
years,  and,  as  I  may  say,  no  sympath}^  at  all  in  all  this 
old  town.  And  if  there  was  any  difference,  it  was 
found  least  where  I  might  most  have  hoped  for  it. 

There  was  Professor .     For  years  I  attended  Ins 

lectures,  in  all  weathers  and  all  hours.  Many  and 
many  a  time,  when  the  class  was  called  together,  it 
was  found  to  consist  of  one  individual — to  wit,  of 
him  now  speaking ;  and  still  oftener,  when  others 
were  present,  the  only  person  who  had  at  all  looked 
into  the  lesson  assigned  was  the  same  humble  indi- 
vidual. I  remember  no  instance  in  which  these  facts 
elicited  any  note  or  comment  from  that  instructor. 
He  once  requested  me  to  translate  a  mathematical 
paper,  and  I  worked  through  it  tlie  whole  of  one 
Sunday,  and  it  was  laid  before  him,  and  it  was  re- 
ceived without  remark  or  thanks.  After  such  long 
years  I  came  to  part  with  him,  and  to  get  my  certifi- 
cate. Without  a  word,  he  wrote  on  a  bit  of  paper: 
*  I  certify  that  Mr.  Thomas  Carlyle  has  been  in  my 
class  during  his  college  course,  and  has  made  good 
progress  in  his  studies.'  Then  he  rang  a  bell,  and 
ordered  a  servant  to  open  the  front  door  for  me. 


34:  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

'Not  the  slightest  sign  that  I  was  a  person  whom  he 
could  have  distinguished  in  any  crowd.  And  so  I 
parted  from  old ." 

Carlyle's  extraordinary  attainments  were  clearly 
enough  recognized  by  his  fellow -students,  among 
whom,  no  doubt,  he  might  have  found  sympathetic 
friends  had  he  been  willing  to  spare  time  from  the 
books  he  was  devouring  in  such  vast  quantities. 
When  he  had  graduated,  the  professors  began  to 
realize  that  their  best  student  had  gone.  For  two 
years  (1814^16)  he  was  mathematical  teacher  in  the 
grammar-school  at  Annan,  where  he  had  been  a  pupil 
between  1806  and  1809.  Then  Professor  Leslie,  the 
coadjutor  and  afterwards  the  successor  of  Playfair, 
procured  for  him,  as  he  had  previously  done  for  Ir- 
ving, a  situation  as  teacher  in  the  neighborhood. 

"It  had  become  increasingly  clear  to  me  that  I 
could  not  enter  the  ministry  with  any  honesty  of 
mind  ;  and  nothing  else  then  offering,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  utter  mental  confusion  as  to  what  thing  was 
desired,  I  went  away  to  that  lonely  straggling  town 
on  the  Frith  of  Forth,  Kirkcaldy,  possessing  then,  as 
still,  few  objects  interesting  to  any  one  not  engaged 
in  the  fishing  profession.  Two  years  there  of  her- 
mitage, loneliness,  at  the  end  of  which  something 
must  be  done.  Back  to  Edinburgh,  and  for  a  time 
a  small  subsistence  is  obtained  by  teaching  a  few 
pupils,  while  the  law  is  now  the  object  aimed  at. 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  35 

Tlien  came  the  dreariest  years — eating  of  tlie  heart, 
misgivings  as  to  whether  there  shall  be  presently 
anything  else  to  eat,  disappointment  of  the  nearest 
and  dearest  as  to  the  hoped-for  entrance  on  the  min- 
istry, and  steadily  growing  disappointment  of  self 
with  the  undertaken  law  profession — above  all,  per- 
haps, wanderings  through  mazes  of  doubt,  perpetual 
questionings  unanswered." 

"  I  had  gradually  become  a  devout  reader  in  Ger- 
man literature,  and  even  now  began  to  feel  a  ca- 
pacity for  work,  but  heard  no  voice  calling  for  just 
the  kind  of  work  I  felt  capable  of  doing.  The  first 
break  of  gray  light  in  this  kind  was  brought  by  my 
old  friend  David  Brewster.  He  set  me  to  work 
on  the  "Edinburgh  Encyclopaedia;"  there  was  not 
much  money  in  it,  but  a  certain  drill,  and,  still  bet- 
ter, a  sense  of  accomplishing  something,  though  far 
yet  from  what  I  was  aiming  at ;  as,  indeed,  it  has 
always  been  far  enough  from  thatP 

I  may  recall  here  an  occasion  when  Carlyle  was 
speaking,  in  his  stormy  way,  of  the  tendency  of  the 
age  to  spend  itself  in  talk.  Mrs.  Carlyle  (with  her 
wonted  tact,  anticipating  any  possible  suggestion  of 
the  same  from  some  listener)  said,  archly, "  And  how 
about  Mr.  Carlyle  V  He  paused  some  moments :  the 
storm  was  over,  and  I  almost  fancied  that  for  once  I 
saw  a  tear  gather  in  the  old  man's  eyes  as  he  said,  in 
low  tone,  "  Mr.  Carlyle  looked  long  and  anxiously  to 


3G  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

find  something  he  could  do  with  any  kind  of  verac- 
ity :  he  found  no  door  open  save  that  he  took,  and 
had  to  take,  though  it  was  by  no  means  what  he 
would  have  selected."  Once,  too,  when  some  vigor- 
ous person  w^as  praising  a  favorite  poet,  Carlyle  spoke 
of  the  said  poet  as  a  "  phrasemonger."  The  other, 
somewhat  nettled,  said,  "  But  what  are  the  best  of 
us  but  phrasemongers !"  Siegfried  was  never  more 
conscious  of  the  vulnerable  point  left  by  tlie  leaf  on 
his  back  than  Carlyle  of  the  distance  between  his 
doctrine  of  silence  and  his  destiny  of  authorship. 
He  bowed  and  said,  "  True ;"  and  the  conversation 
proceeded  amiably  enough. 

Between  the  years  1820-24  Carlyle  wrote  for  the 
"Edinburgh  Encyclopaedia"  sixteen  articles — name- 
ly, Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  Montaigne,  Montesquieu, 
Montfaucon,  Dr.  Moore,  Sir  John  Moore,  Necker, 
Nelson,  Netherlands,  Newfoundland,  Norfolk,  North- 
amptonshire, Northumberland,  Mungo  Park,  Lord 
Chatham,  William  Pitt.  To  the  New  Edinburgh 
B&view,  in  the  same  years,  he  contributed  a  paper 
on  Joanna  Baillie's  "  Metrical  Legends,"  and  one  on 
Goethe's  "  Faust."  In  1822  he  made  the  translation 
of  Legendre,  and  wrote  the  valuable  essay  on  "  Pro- 
portion" prefixed  to  it,  though  it  did  not  appear  un- 
til 1824.  M.  Louis  Blanc  informed  me  that  he  once 
met  with  a  French  treatise  devoted  to  the  discussion 
of  the  mathematical  theses  of  Carlyle,  the  writer  of 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  37 

wliicli  seemed  unaware  of  his  author's  fame  in  other 
matters. 

"  And  now  "  (towards  the  close  of  his  twenty-sev- 
enth year  this  would  be)  "  things  brightened  a  little. 
Edward  Irving,  then  amid  his  worshippers  in  Lon- 
don, had  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  wealthy  family, 
the  Bullers,  who  had  a  son  with  whom  all  teachers 
had  effected  nothing.  There  were  two  boys,  and  he 
named  me  as  likely  to  succeed  with  them.  It  w^as  in 
this  way  that  I  came  to  take  charge  of  Charles  Buller 
— afterwards  my  dear  friend,  Thackeray's  friend  also 
— and  I  gradually  managed  to  get  him  ready  for 
Cambridge.  Charles  and  1  came  to  love  each  other 
dearly,  and  we  all  saw  him  with  pride  steadily  rising 
in  Parliamentary  distinction,  when  he  died.  Poor 
Charles!  he  was  one  of  the  finest  youths  I  ever 
knew.  The  engagement  ended  without  regret,  but 
while  it  lasted  was  the  means  of  placing  me  in  cir- 
cumstances of  pecuniary  comfort  beyond  w^hat  I  had 
previously  known,  and  of  thus  giving  me  the  means 
of  doing  more  congenial  work,  such  as  the  *Life 
of  Schiller,'  and  *  Wilhelm  Meister's  Wanderjahre.' 
But  one  gaunt  form  had  been  brought  to  my  side  by 
the  strain  through  which  I  had  passed,  who  was  not 
in  a  hurry  to  quit — ill-health.  The  reviewers  were 
not  able  to  make  much  of  Wilhelm.  De  Quincey 
and  Jeffrey  looked  hard  at  us.  I  presently  met  De 
Quincey,  and  he  looked  pale  and  uneasy,  possibly 


38  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

thinking  that  lie  was  about  to  encounter  some  re- 
sentment from  the  individual  whom  he  had  been 
cutting  up.  But  it  had  made  the  very  smallest  im- 
pression upon  me,  and  I  was  quite  prepared  to  listen 
respectfully  to  anything  he  had  to  say.  And,  as  I 
remember,  he  made  himself  quite  agreeable  when  his 
nervousness  was  gone.  He  had  a  melodious  voice 
and  an  affable  manner,  and  his  powers  of  conversa- 
tion ^vere  unusual.  He  had  a  soft,  courteous  way  of 
taking  up  what  you  had  said,  and  furthering  it  ap- 
parently; and  you  presently  discovered  that  he  didn't 
agree  with  you  at  all,  and  was  quietly  upsetting  your 
positions  one  after  another." 

The  review  of  "  Wilhelm  Meister"  by  Jeffrey,  just 
mentioned,  was  one  of  the  notable  literary  events  of 
the  time.  Beginning  his  task  with  the  foregone 
conclusion  that  prevailed  at  Holland  House  concern- 
ing all  importations  from  Germany,  even  before  they 
were  visible,  Jeffrey  pronounced  "  Wilhelm  Meister" 
to  be  "eminently  absurd,  puerile,  incongruous,  and 
affected,"  "almost  from  beginning  to  end  one  flagrant 
offence  against  every  principle  of  taste  and  every 
rule  of  composition."  Unfortunately,  this  was  pre- 
ceded by  the  statement  that  the  judgment  was  made 
"  after  the  most  deliberate  consideration ;"  for  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  review  the  writer  is  compelled  to 
regard  the  translator  "as one  who  has  proved  by  his 
preface  to  be  a  person  of  talents,  and  by  every  part 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  39 

of  the  work  to  be  no  ordinary  master  of  at  least  one 
of  the  kngiiages  with  which  he  has  to  deal ;"  and, 
finally, this  strange  review  (this  time  evidently  "after 
the  most  deliberate  consideration")  winds  up  with 
its  confession :  "  Many  of  the  passages  to  which  we 
have  now  alluded  are  executed  with  great  talent, 
and,  we  are  very  sensible,  are  better  worth  extracting 
than  those  we  have  cited.  But  it  is  too  late  now  to 
change  our  selections,  and  we  can  still  less  afford  to 
add  to  them.  On  the  whole,  we  close  the  book  with 
some  feeling  of  mollification  towards  its  faults,  and 
a  disposition  to  abate,  if  possible,  some  part  of  the 
censure  we  were  impelled  to  bestow  on  it  at  the  be- 
ginning." 

"And  now"  (to  resume  my  notes  of  Carlyle's 
story)  "  an  event  which  had  for  a  long  time  been 
visible  as  a  possibility  drew  on  to  consummation.  In 
the  loneliest  period  of  my  later  life  here  in  Edin- 
buro^h  there  was  within  reach  one  home  and  one 
family  to  which  again  Irving — always  glad  to  do  me 
a  good  turn — had  introduced  me.*  At  Haddington 
lived  the  Welshes,  and  there  I  had  formed  a  friend- 
ship with  Jane,  now  Mrs.  Carlyle.     She  was  charac- 

*  Irving  has  left  an  intimation  that  he  himself  was  a  lover  of  Jane 
Welsh.  Carlyle's  marriage  took  place,  after  a  long  engagement,  in 
1826.  She  was  a  very  brilliant  writer,  as  her  letters  will  show  when 
published.  She  wrote  a  little  story  called  "Watch  and  Canary;" 
and,  it  is  said,  had  just  set  to  work  on  a  novel  when  she  died. 


40  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

terized  at  that  time  by  an  earnest  desire  for  knowl- 
edge, and  I  was  for  a  long  time  aiding  and  directing 
her  studies.  The  family  were  very  grateful,  and 
made  it  a  kind  of  home  for  me.  But  w^hen,  further 
on,  our  marriage  was  spoken  of,  the  family — not  un- 
naturally, perhaps,  mindful  of  their  hereditary  digni- 
ty (they  were  descended  from  John  Knox) — opposed 
us  rather  firmly.  But  Jane  Welsh,  having  taken  her 
resolution,  showed  further  her  ability  to  defend  it 
against  all  comers;  and  she  maintained  it  to  the 
extent  of  our  presently  dwelling  man  and  wife  at 
Comley  Bank  (Edinburgh),  and  then  at  the  old  soli- 
tary farm-house  called  Craigenputtoch,  that  is,  Hill 
of  the  Hawk.  The  sketch  of  it  in  Goethe's  transla- 
tion of  my  '  Schiller '  was  made  by  George  Moir,  a 
lawyer  here  in  Edinburgh,  of  whom  I  used  to  see 
something.  The  last  time  I  saw  old  Craigenputtoch 
it  filled  me  with  sadness — a  kind  of  Valley  of  Jehosh- 
aphat.  Probably  it  was  through  both  the  struggles 
of  that  time,  the  end  of  them  being  not  yet,  and  the 
happy  events  with  which  it  was  associated  —  now 
buried  and  gone.  It  was  there,  and  on  our  way 
there,  that  the  greetings  and  gifts  of  Goethe  over- 
took us ;  and  it  was  there  that  Emerson  found  us. 
He  came  from  Dumfries  in  an  old  rusty  gig ;  came 
one  day  and  vanished  the  next.  I  had  never  heard 
of  him :  he  gave  us  his  brief  biography,  and  told  us 
of  his  bereavement  in  loss  of  his  wife.    We  took  a 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  41 

walk  while  dinner  was  prepared.  We  gave  him  a 
welcome,  we  were  glad  to  see  him :  our  house  was 
homely,  but  she  who  presided  there  made  it  of  neat- 
ness such  as  were  at  ^y  moment  suitable  for  a  visit 
from  any  majesty.  I  did  not  then  adequately  recog- 
nize Emerson's  genius;  but  my  wife  and  I  both 
thought  him  a  beautiful  transparent  soul,  and  he  was 
always  a  very  pleasant  object  to  us  in  the  distance. 
Now  and  then  a  letter  comes  from  him,  and  amid  all 
the  smoke  and  mist  of  this  world  it  is  always  as  a 
window  flung  open  to  the  azure.  During  all  this 
last  weary  work  of  mine,  his  words  have  been  nearly 
the  only  ones  about  the  thing  done — '  Friedrich' — to 
which  I  have  inwardly  responded,  ^Yes — yes — yes; 
and  much  obliged  to  you  for  saying  that  same!' 
The  other  day  I  was  staying  with  some  people  who 
talked  about  some  books  that  seemed  to  me  idle 
enough ;  so  I  took  up  Emerson's  '  English  Traits,' 
and  soon  found  myself  lost  to  everything  else — wan- 
dering amid  all  manner  of  sparkling  crystals  and 
wonderful  luminous  vistas;  and  it  really  appeared 
marvellous  how  people  can  read  what  they  sometimes 
do  with  such  books  on  their  shelves.  Emerson  has 
gone  a  very  different  direction  from  any  in  which  I 
can  see  my  way  to  go ;  but  words  cannot  tell  how  I 
prize  the  old  friendship  formed  there  on  Craigen- 
puttoch  hill,  or  how  deeply  I  have  felt  in  all  he  has 
written  the  same  aspiring  intelligence  which  shone 


42  THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 

about  lis  when  be  came  as  a  young  man,  and  left 
with  us  a  memory  always  cherished. 

"  After  Emerson  left  us,  gradually  all  determining 
interests  drew  us  to  London ;  and  there  the  main 
work,  such  as  it  is,  has  been  done ;  and  now  they 
have  brought  me  down  here,  and  got  the  talk  out  of 


mei 


!" 


But  here  I  must  take  a  longer  pause.  Much  did 
Carlyle  say  here  which  I  cannot  even  try  to  report. 
He  spake  not  to  me,  but  as  if  unaware  of  any  one's 
presence;  as  if  conversing  with  the  risen  shades  of 
a  world  I  knew  not.  But,  so  often  as  I  have  read 
"  Sartor  Eesartus"  since  then,  I  have  seen  here  and 
there  the  man  at  whose  feet  I  was  then  sitting; 
most  of  all  have  I  seen  and  heard  the  man  of  that 
quiet  chamber  in  Edinburgh  in  the  weird  experience 
that  closes  "  the  everlasting  ]^o."  That  passage  is  a 
transcript  from  the  life  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  sum- 
ming-up of  the  years  which  preceded  and  ended  that 
final  venture  (i.  e.,  the  Law),  to  enter  upon  some 
conventional  work  of  the  world.  I  will  ask  my 
reader  to  ponder  the  words  to  which  I  have  referred, 
and  venture  to  quote  here : 

" '  So  had  it  lasted,'  concludes  the  Wanderer — ^  so 
had  it  lasted,  as  in  bitter  protracted  Death-agony, 
through  long  years.  The  heart  within  me,  unvisited 
by  any  heavenly  dew-drop,  was  smouldering  in  sul- 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  43 

phurous,  slow-consuming  fire.  Almost  since  earliest 
memory  I  shed  no  tear ;  or  once  only  when  I,  mur- 
muring half-audibly,  recited  Faust's  Death-song,  that 
wild  Selig  der  den  er  im  Siegesglanze  findet  (Happy 
whom  he  finds  in  Battle's  splendor),  and  thought 
that  of  this  last  Friend  even  I  was  not  forsaken,  that 
Destiny  itself  could  not  doom  me  not  to  die.  Hav- 
ing no  hope,  neither  had  I  any  definite  fear,  were  it 
of  Man  or  of  Devil ;  nay,  I  often  felt  as  if  it  might 
be  solacing,  could  the  Arch -devil  himself,  though 
in  Tartarean  terrors,  but  rise  to  me,  that  I  might 
tell  him  a  little  of  my  mind.  And  yet,  strangely 
enougli,  I  lived  in  a  continual,  indefinite  pining  fear ; 
tremulous,  pusillanimous,  apprehensive  of  I  know 
not  what :  it  seemed  as  if  all  things  in  the  heavens 
above  and  the  earth  beneath  would  hurt  me ;  as  if 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  but  boundless  jaws 
of  a  devouring  monster,  wherein  I,  palpitating,  wait- 
ed to  be  devoured. 

"*Full  of  such  humor,  and  perhaps  the  misera- 
blest  man  in  the  whole  French  Capital  or  Suburbs, 
was  I,  one  sultry  Dog-day,  after  much  perambula- 
tion, toiling  along  the  dirty  little  Eue  Saint-Thomas 
de  I'Enfer,  among  civic  rubbish  enough,  in  a  close 
atmosphere,  and  over  pavements  hot  as  IN'ebuchad- 
nezzar's  Furnace,  whereby,  doubtless,  my  spirits  were 
little  cheered,  when  all  at  once  there  rose  a  Thought 
in  me,  and  I  asked  myself :  "  What  art  thou  afraid 


44  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

of?  Wherefore,  like  a  coward,  dost  thou  forever 
pip  and  whimper,  and  go  cowering  and  trembling? 
Despicable  biped  !  what  is  the  sum-total  of  the  worst 
that  lies  before  thee !  Death  ?  Well,  Death  ;  and 
say  the  pangs  of  Tophet  too,  and  all  that  the  Devil 
and  Man  may,  wdll,  or  can  do  against  thee.  Ilast 
thou  not  a  heart  ?  canst  thou  not  suffer  whatsoever 
it  be  ?  and  as  a  Child  of  Freedom,  though  outcast, 
trample  Tophet  itself  under  thy  feet,  while  it  con- 
sumes thee  ?  Let  it  come,  then  ;  I  will  meet  it  and 
defy  it !"  And  as  I  so  thought,  there  rushed  like  a 
stream  of  fire  over  my  whole  soul ;  and  I  shook  base 
Fear  away  from  me  forever.  I  was  strong,  of  un- 
known strength  ;  a  spirit,  almost  a  god.  Ever  from 
that  time  the  temper  of  my  misery  was  changed : 
not  Fear  or  whining  Sorrow  was  it,  but  Indignation 
and  grim-eyed  Defiance. 

"'Thus  had  the  Everlasting  'Ho  {das  ewige 
Nein)  pealed  authoritatively  through  all  the  recesses 
of  my  Being,  of  my  Me ;  and  then  it  w^as  that  my 
whole  Me  stood  up,  in  native  God-created  majesty, 
and  with  emphasis  recorded  its  Protest.  Such  a 
Protest,  the  most  important  transaction  in  life,  may 
that  Indignation  and  Defiance,  in  a  psychological 
point  of  view,  be  fitly  called.  The  Everlasting  Xo 
had  said,  "  Behold,  thou  art  fatherless,  outcast,  and 
the  Universe  is  mine  (the  Devil's),"  to  which  my 
whole  Me  now  made  answer,  "/am  not  thine,  but 
Free,  and  forever  hate  thee !" 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  45 

"*It  is  from  this  hour  that  I  incline  to  date  my 
Spiritual  ]^ew- birth,  or  Baphometic  Fire -baptism  ; 
perhaps  I  directly  thereupon  began  to  be  a  Man.' " 

This  walk  in  Paris  must  not  be  supposed  allegori- 
cal. Carlyle  told  me  that  it  actually  stood  in  his 
life  as  it  is  written  in  his  book.  He  had  not  heard 
the  story  of  how  this  Rue  de  I'Enfer  came  by  its  name 
until  I  encountered  it  while  writing  my  "  Demonol- 
ogy."  In  the  time  of  Saint  Louis  it  w^as  a  road  sup- 
posed to  be  haunted" by  a  fearful  green  monster,  the 
Diable  Yauvert,  a  dragon-man,  who  twisted  the  necks 
of  all  he  met.  It  would  appear  to  have  been  a  phan- 
tasm got  up  by  a  murderous  band  of  money-coiners, 
who  occupied  the  ancient  Chateau  Yauvert.  The 
Carthusian  monks  having  offered  to  exorcise  the 
devils  if  Saint  Louis  w^ould  give  them  the  chateau, 
that  was  done.  The  Diable  Yauvert  left  his  trail 
only  in  the  name  of  the  street,  now  called  Rocherau- 
Enfer.  N'ear-by  is  the  convent  Saint  Michael.  But 
the  only  real  dragon-slayer  from  the  time  of  Saint 
Louis  until  now  who  has  passed  that  way  was  the 
young  Scotchman  who  there  laid  low  the  phantasm 
of  Fear  w^ith  the  poised  spear  of  a  free  mind. 

One  of  the  sorrowful  days  of  that  period  was  that 
on  which  he  was  compelled  to  open  an  abyss  be- 
tween himself  and  Edward  Irving.  On  a  long  walk 
they  sat  down  together,  and  Carlyle  unfolded  to  him, 
as  well  as  he  could  to  a  man  who  could  so  little  com- 


46  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

preliend  them,  the  intellectual  experiences  which 
forbade  his  entering  on  the  ministry.  They  parted 
to  go  their  several  ways.  But  Carlyle  never  lost  his 
love  for  his  early  friend  ;  even  when  Irving  was  far 
gone  in  insanity,  he  visited  him  and  tried  to  soothe 
him.  "Friendliness  still  beamed  in  his  eyes,"  he 
wrote,  "  but  now  from  amid  unquiet  fire ;  his  face 
was  flaccid,  wasted,  unsound ;  hoary  as  with  extreme 
age :  he  was  trembling  over  the  brink  of  the  grave. 
Adieu,  thou  first  friend — adieu,  while  this  confused 
twilight  of  existence  lasts !" 

lY. 

When- 1  left  Mr.  Erskiue's  house  that  night,  it  was 
to  go  to  the  office  of  the  Scotsman,  in  order  to  revise 
the  proof  of  the  new  Lord  Eector's  address.  Car- 
lyle placed  in  my  hands  the  notes  he  had  made  be- 
forehand for  the  occasion,  saying,  as  he  did  so,  that 
he  did  not  suppose  they  would  assist  me  much.  Ilis 
surmise  proved  unhappily  true.  The  notes  had  been 
written  partly  in  his  own  hand,  partly  by  an  amanu- 
ensis. Those  written  by  the  amanuensis  had  been 
but  little  followed  in  the  address,  and  those  added 
by  himself  were  nearly  undecipherable.  Already 
that  tremor  which  so  loftg  affected  his  hand  when 
he  held  a  pen — it  was  much  steadier  when  he  used  a 
pencil — afflicted  him.  The  best-written  sentences  in 
the  notes  (now  before  me)  are  the  lines  of  Goethe 


it  ' 


FAC-SIMILE  OF  CARLYLE  S  HANDWRITING. 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  47 

which  he  repeated  at  the  close  of  the  address,  a  fac- 
simile of  which  I  give. 

For  the  rest,  I  find  in  these  notes  (which,  on  my 
request,  he  said  I  was  welcome  to  keep)  some  pas- 
sages which  were  not  spoken,  but  were  meant  to 
reach  the  public.  I  therefore  quote  them  here,  pre- 
mising only  that  where  I  have  supplied  more  than  a 
connecting  word,  such  phrase  is  put  in  brackets,  and 
mainly  supplied  from  what  he  really  did  say. 

EXTRACTS    FROM   THE   NOTES. 
"Beautiful  is  young  enthusiasm;  keep  it  to  the  end,  and  be  more 
and  more  correct  in  fixing  on  the  object  of  it.     It  is  a  terrible  thing 
to  be  wrong  in  that — tlie  source  of  all  our  miseries  and  confusions 
whatever." 

"  The  '  Seven  Liberal  Arts'  notion  of  education  is  now  a  little  ob- 
solete ;  but  try  whatever  is  set  before  you  ;  gradually  find  what  is  fit- 
test for  you.     This  you  will  learn  to  read  in  all  sciences  and  subjects." 

"  You  will  not  learn  it  from  any  current  set  of  History  Books  ;  but 
God  has  not  gone  to  sleep,  and  eternal  Justice,  not  eternal  Vulpinism 
[is  the  law  of  the  universe]." 

"It  was  for  religion  that  universities  were  first  instituted;  practi- 
cally fur  that,  under  all  changes  of  dialect,  they  continue :  pious  awe 
of  the  Great  Unknown  makes  a  sacred  canopy,  under  which  all  has 
to  grow.  All  is  lost  and  futile  in  universities  if  that  fail.  Sciences 
and  technicalities  are  very  good  and  useful,  indeed,  but  in  comparison 
they  are  as  adjuncts  to  the  smith's  shop." 

"There  is  in  tliis  university  a  considerable  stir  about  endowments. 
That  there  should  be  need  of  such  is  not  honorable  to  us  at  a  time 
when  so  many  in  Scotland  and  elsewhere  have  suddenly  become  pos- 


48  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

sessed  of  mUlions  which  they  do  not  know  what  to  do  with.  Like 
that  Lancashire  gentleman  who  left  a  quarter  of  a  million  to  help  pay 
the  national  debt.  Poor  soul  I  All  he  had  got  in  a  life  of  toil  and 
struggle  were  certain  virtues  —  diligence,  frugality,  endurance,  pa- 
tience— truly  an  invaluable  item,  but  an  invisible  one.  The  money 
which  secured  all  was  strictly  zero !  I  am  aware,  all  of  us  are  aware, 
a  little  money  is  needed  ;  but  there  are  limits  to  the  need  of  money — 
comparatively  altogether  narrow  limits.  To  every  mortal  in  this  stu- 
pendous universe  incalculably  higher  objects  than  money !  The  deep- 
est depths  of  Vulgarism  is  that  of  setting  up  money  as  our  Ark  of  the 
Covenant.  Devorgilla  gave  [a  good  deal  of  money  gathered  by  John 
Balliol  in  Scotland]  to  Balliol  College  in  Oxford,  and  we  don't  want 
it  back ;  but  as  to  the  then  ratio  of  man's  soul  to  man's  stomach, 
man's  celestial  part  to  his  terrestrial,  and  even  bestial,  compared  to 
the  now  ratio  in  such  improved  circumstances,  is  a  reflection,  if  we 
pursue  it,  that  might  humble  us  to  the  dust. 

*'  [The  English  are  the  richest  people,  in  the  way  of  endowments,  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  in  their  universities ;  and  it  is  a  remarkable  fact 
that  since  the  time  of  Bentley  you  cannot  name  anybody  that  has 
gained  a  great  name  in  scholarship  among  them,  or  constituted  a 
point  of  revolution  in  the  pursuits  of  men  in  that  way.  The  man 
that  does  that  is  worthy  of  being  remembered  among  men,  though  he 
may  be  poor,  not  endowed  with  worldly  wealth.  One  man  that  actu- 
ally did  constitute  a  revolution  was  the  son  of  a  poor  weaver  in  Sax- 
ony, who  edited  his  'TibuUus'  in  Dresden  in  the  room  of  a  poor 
comrade,  and  while  he  was  editing  it  had  to  gather  peascod  shells  in 
the  street  and  boil  them  for  dinner.  His  name  was  Ileyne.  I  can 
remember  it  was  quite  a  revolution  in  my  mind  when  I  got  hold  of 
that  man's  book  on  Virgil.]  Be  zealous  [for  learning] :  far  beyond 
money  is  it  to  use  well  what  is  prepared  for  us.  You  cannot  wait  on 
better  times ;  for  you,  it  is  here  and  now,  or  else  never ;  the  better 
times  will  come  if  they  can. 

"We  have  ceased  to  believe,  as  Devorgilla  did,  that  in  colleges  and 
monasteries  is  the  certain  road  to  Wisdom;  and,  alas!  secondly,  that 


THOMAS    CARLYLE.  49 

Wisdom  is  the  way  to  heaven.  Many  of  us  think — do  they  not? 
though  nobody  will  say  so — that  cent,  per  cent,  is  the  real  course  that 
leads  to  advantages.  In  regard  to  the  colleges  and  monasteries,  I 
agree  with  all  the  world  in  considerably  dissenting  from  Devorgilla. 
Wisdom  is  not  quite  so  certainly  to  be  obtained  there ;  but  in  regard 
to  the  second  proposition,  I  do  go  with  her,  and  invite  every  living 
soul  to  go  with  her — that  Wisdom  is,  was,  and  to  the  end  of  time  and 
through  eternity  will  be,  the  supreme  object  for  a  man,  and  the  only 
path  upward  for  his  objects  and  for  him.  Yes,  my  friends,  especially 
you,  my  young  friends,  that  is  forever  the  divine  thing  for  us ;  what- 
ever heaven  we  can  expect,  there,  or  nowhere,  is  the  road  to  it.  [In 
Wisdom,  *  namely,  sound  appreciation  and  just  decision  as  to  all  the 
objects  that  come  round  about  you,  and  the  habit  of  behaving  with 
justice  and  wisdom.']  I  would  have  you  reflect  much  upon  this, 
mostly  in  silence,  in  all  stages  of  your  life-journey,  in  all  scenes  and 
situations  ;  the  more  purely  you  can  discern  that,  and  the  more  stead- 
fastly act  upon  it,  the  better  it  will  be  for  you.  On  other  terms,  vic- 
tory is  possible  for  no  man. 

* '  Silent  Wisdom !  The  mute  ages,  they  say  nothing  for  themselves ; 
but  in  this,  the  object  and  centre  of  all  articulate  knowledge,  one  has 
to  call  them  far  more  opulent.  The  old  Baron  who  had  no  literature 
whatever,  could  not  sign  his  name,  had  to  put  his  cross  mark,  some- 
times dipped  his  iron  hand  and  stamped  that — many  a  'brilliant' 
writing  and  what  not  seems  to  me  the  reverse  of  improvement  on 
him !  Noble  virtues  dwelt  in  him,  spotless  honor  in  interests  not  to 
be  measured  in  worldly  good,  an  authentic  commerce  with  heavea 
not  at  all  recognizable  in  his  witty  descendant.  Prudent,  patient, 
valiant,  steering  towards  his  object  with  all  the  qualities  needful,  and 
his  object  a  good  one,  one  begins  to  see  in  him  what  the  real  History 
of  England  was — the  making  of  the  best  men.  And  so  it  lasted  for 
six  or  seven  generations.  When  you  once  put  speech  into  that,  it  is 
a  glorious  thing — glorious  to  the  wise  man  himself,  and  to  all  the 
world.  But  let  me  remind  you,  you  may  superadd  speech,  and  un- 
fortunately have  little  or  nothing  of  all  that  to  superadd  it  to.     A 

3 


50 


THOMAS   CAELYLE. 


man  may  actually  have  no  wisdom,  and  be  a  very  great  talker.  How 
to  regain  all  that  ?  You  will  regain  it  in  proportion  as  you  are  sin- 
cere. I  often  hear  of  an  "excellent  speech ;"  well,  but  it  is  the  ex- 
istence of  the  things  spoken  that  will  benefit  me.  So  much  depends 
on  a  man's  morality ;  on  the  heart  fully  as  much  depends  as  on  the 
head— the  Heart  is  first  of  all !  There  are  75,000  sermons  preached 
every  Sunday — dry-rot ;  but  I  will  not  suppose  you  gone  into  that 
state.  It  is  a  long  road  I  have  travelled,  and  you  are  all  upon  it, 
struggling  forward  into  the  undiscovered  countiy,  which  to  your  fa- 
thers and  grandfathers  is  but  too  well  known ;  surely  if  they  would 
speak  to  you  with  candor  and  sincerity  and  insight,  they  might  throw 
some  light  on  it. 

*'  If  all  this  is  the  supreme  end  of  universities,  it  becomes  more  and 
more  dubious  of  attainment  therein.  The  old  Baron  learned  by  ap- 
prenticeship ;  theoretic  instruction  will  not  do ;  it  is  a  dreadful  case 
when  the  theoretic  is  got,  and  the  real  missed.  This  has  led  some 
to  think  of  mute  education." 

"  What  is  fame?  Shakespeare  ends  with,  '  Good  friend,  for  Jesus' 
sake,  forbear!'" 

"  Much  confusion  you  may  count  on  ahead,  but  there  are  beneficent 
hearts  too :  their  doors  may  seem  closed ;  but  such  you  will  find,  and 
their  human  love  of  you  and  help  of  you  will  be  balm  for  all  your 
wounds." 

In  transmitting  a  report  of  Carljle's  address  as 
Lord  Eector  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  I  wrote  a 
note,  which  was  printed  in  that  journal,  and  which  I 
venture  to  insert  here :  "  I  have  never  heard  a  speech 
of  whose  more  remarkable  qualities  so  few  can  be 
conveyed  on  paper.  You  will  read  of  *  applause' 
and  *  laughter,'  but  you  will  little  realize  the  elo- 
quent blood  flaming  up  the  speaker's  cheek,  the 


THOMAS    CAliLYLE.  51 

kindling  of  liis  eye,  or  tlie  inexpressible  voice  and 
look  when  the  drolleries  were  coming  out.  When 
he  spoke  of  clap-trajD  books  exciting  astonishment 
^  in  the  minds  of  foolish  persons,'  the  evident  halting 
at  the  word  ^  fools,'  and  the  smoothing  of  his  hair,  as 
if  he  must  be  decorous,  which  preceded  the  '  foolish 
persons,'  were  exceedingly  comical.  As  for  the  flam- 
ing bursts,  they  took  shape  in  grand  tones,  whose 
impression  was  made  deeper,  not  by  raising,  but  by 
lowering  the  voice.  Your  correspondent  here  de- 
clares that  he  should  hold  it  worth  his  coming  all 
the  way  from  London  in  the  rain  in  the  Sunday- 
night  train  were  it  only  to  have  heard  Carlyle  say, 
'  There  is  a  nobler  ambition  than  the  gaining  of  all 
California,  or  the  getting  of  all  the  suffrages  that  arc 
on  the  planet  just  now.'  In  the  first  few  minutes 
of  the  address  there  was  some  hesitation,  and  much 
of  the  shrinking  that  one  might  expect  in  a  secluded 
scholar ;  but  these  very  soon  cleared  away,  and  dur- 
ing the  larger  part,  and  to  the  close  of  the  oration, 
it  was  evident  that  he  was  receiving  a  sympathetic 
influence  from  his  listeners,  which  he  did  not  fail  to 
return  teafold.  The  applause  became  less  frequent ; 
the  silence  became  that  of  a  woven  spell;  and  the 
recitation  of  the  beautiful  lines  from  Goethe  at  the 
end  was  so  masterl}^,  so  marvellous,  that  one  felt  in 
it  that  Carlyle's  real  anathemas  against  rhetoric  were 
but  the  expression  of  his  knowledge  that  there  is  a 
rhetoric  beyond  all  other  arts." 


52  THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 

Y. 

On  the  evening  of  the  Edinburgh  Address,  I  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Carljle,  giving  particulars  concerning  Car- 
Ijle  and  the  installation  which  I  knew  she  would  be 
glad  to  hear.  Alas  !  alas !  It  was  but  a  few  weeks 
after  that  I  placed  in  Carlyle's  hand,  when  he  re- 
turned from  her  grave,  the  answer  to  my  letter — one 
of  the  last  she  ever  wrote.     Here  it  is : 

"5  CiiEYNE  Row,  Chelsea,  5  Apjnl,  18G6. 

"My  dear  Mr.  Conwat, — The  'disposition  to  write  me  a  little 
note,'  was  a  good  inspiration,  and  I  thank  you  for  it;  or  rather,  ac- 
cepting it  as  an  inspiration,  I  thank  Providence  for  it — Providence, 
'Immortal  Gods,'  'Superior  Powers,'  'Destinies,'  whichever  be  the 
name  you  like  best. 

"  Indeed,  by  far  the  most  agreeable  part  of  this  flare-up  of  success, 
to  my  feeling,  has  been  the  enthusiasm  of  personal  affection  and  sym- 
pathy on  the  part  of  his  friends.  I  haven't  been  so  fond  of  every- 
body, and  so  pleased  with  the  world,  since  I  was  a  girl,  as  just  in 
these  days  when  readipg  the  letters  of  his  friends,  your  own  included. 
I  am  not  very  well,  having  done  what  I  do  at  every  opportunity — 
gone  off  my  sleep ;  so  I  am  preparing  to  spend  a  day  and  night  at 
Windsor  for  change  of  atmosphere,  moral  as  well  as  material.  I  am 
in  a  hurry,  but  couldn't  refrain  from  saying,  'Thank  you,  and  all 
good  be  with  you !' 

"  Sincerely  yours,        Jake  W.  Carltle." 

"Whatever  triumph'  there  may  have  been," said 
Carlyle,  when  I  next  met  him,  "in  that  now  so  dark- 
ly overcast  day,  was  indeed  hers.     Long,  long  years 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  53 

ago,  she  took  lier  place  by  the  side  of  a  poor  man  of 
humblest  condition,  against  all  other  provisions  for 
her,  undertook  to  share  his  lot  for  weal  or  woe ;  and 
in  that  office  what  she  has  been  to  him  and  done  for 
him,  how  she  has  placed,  as  it  were,  velvet  between 
him  and  all  the  sharp  angularities  of  existence,  re- 
mains now  only  in  the  knowledge  of  one  man,  and 
will  presently  be  finally  hid  in  his  grave." 

]^o thing  could  be  more  beautiful  than  the  loving 
reverence  of  Carlyle  for  the  delicate,  soft-voiced  lit- 
tle lady  whose  epitaph  he  wrote  in  words  that  may 
here  be  quoted : 

"Here  likewise  now  rests  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  spouse  of  Thomas 
Carlyle,  Chelsea,  London.  She  was  born  at  Haddington,  14th  July, 
1801,  only  child  of  the  above  John  Welsh  and  of  Grace  Welsh,  Caple- 
gell,  Dumfriesshire,  his  wife.  In  her  bright  existence  she  had  more 
sorrows  than  are  common,  but  also  a  soft  invincibility,  a  capacity  of 
discernment,  and  a  noble  loyalty  of  heart,  which  are  rare.  For  forty 
years  she  was  the  true  and  loving  helpmate  of  her  husband,  and  by 
act  and  word  unweariedly  forwarded  him  as  none  else  could  in  all  of 
worthy  that  he  did  or  attempted.  She  died  at  London,  21st  April, 
]  866,  suddenly  snatched  away  from  him,  and  the  light  of  his  hfe  as  if 
gone  out." 

When  Carlyle's  mood  was  stormiest,  her  voice 
could  in  an  instant  allay  it ;  the  lion  was  led  as  by  a 
little  child.  She  sat  a  gentle  invalid  on  the  sofa,  and 
in  the  end,  whatever  had  been  the  outburst  of  indig- 
nation, justice  was  sure  to  be  done,  and  the  mitiga- 
tion sure  to  be  remembered.     I  can  hear  her  voice 


54:  THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 

now — "  But,  Mr.  Carlyle,  you  remember  he  did  act 
very  nobly  towards  that  poor  man,"  etc.,  followed 
from  the  just  now  E-hadamanthus  with,  "  All,  yes ; 
lie  had,  after  all,  a  vein  of  good  feeling  in  him ;"  and 
then  came  the  neatest  summing-up  of  virtues  con- 
cerning some  personage  whose  fragments  ^ve  had 
despaired  of  ever  picking  up.  Carlyle  was  always 
modest  w^hen  speaking  of  himself — which  lie  rarely 
did — and  artistic  in  his  portraits  of  others.  The 
shades  might  be  laid  on  rather  thickly  at  first,  but 
the  lights  were  sure  to  be  added  at  each  possible 
point, — except,  indeed,  in  the  case  of  a  few  typical 
public  figures,  to  hate  whom  was  in  the  essence  of 
his  religion.  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  a  true  poetic  nature 
and  an  almost  infallible  insight.  In  the  conversation 
which  went  on  in  the  old  drawing-room  at  Chelsea 
there  was  no  suggestion  of  things  secret  or  reserved; 
people  with  sensitive  toes  had  no  careful  provision 
made  for  them,  and  had  best  keep  away ;  free,  frank, 
and  simple  speech  and  intercourse  were  the  unwrit- 
ten but  ever-present  law.  Mrs.  Carlyle's  wit  and 
humor  w^ere  overflowing,  and  she  told  anecdotes 
about  her  husband  under  which  he  sat  w^itli  a  pa- 
tient look  of  repudiation  until  the  loud  laugh  broke 
out  and  led  the  chorus.  Now  it  was  when  she  de- 
scribed his  work  on  "Friedrich"  as  one  of  those 
botanical  growths  which  every  now  and  then  come 
to  a  knot,  which  being  slowly  passed,  it  grows  on 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  55 

to  another  knot.  "  What  Mr.  Carlyle  is  when  one 
of  those  knots  is  reached,  must  be  left  to  vivid  im- 
aginations." Again  it  was  a  transitory  cook  who 
served  up  daily  some  mess  described  by  Carlyle  as 
"Stygian,"  with  "Tartarean"  for  a  variant.  She 
being  dismissed,  another  applicant  comes. 

"  Carlyle  having,  you  are  aware,  deep  intuitive  in- 
sight into  human  character,  goes  down  to  speak  to 
the  new  woman,  and  returns  to  pronounce  her  a  most 
worthy  and  honest  person.  The  woman  next  comes 
to  me,  and  a  more  accomplished  Sairey  Gamp  my 
eyes  never  looked  on.  The  great  coarse  creature 
comes  close,  eyes  me  from  head  to  foot,  and  begins 
by  telling  me, '  When  people  dies,  I  can  lay  'em  out 
perfect.'  '  Sairey '  was  not  retained,  though  I  had 
no  doubt  whatever  of  her  ability  to  lay  any  of  us  out 
'  perfect.' " 

One  evening  the  talk  fell  on  the  Brownings.  Car- 
lyle had  given  us  the  most  attractive  picture  of  Rob- 
ert Browning  in  his  youth.  "  He  had  simple  speech 
and  manners,  and  ideas  of  his  own ;  and  I  recall  a 
very  pleasing  talk  with  him  during  a  walk,  some- 
where about  Croydon,  to  the  top  of  a  hill.  Miss 
Barrett  sent  me  some  of  her  first  verses  in  manu- 
script, and  I  wrote  back  that  I  thought  she  could  do 
better  than  write  verses.  But  then  she  wrote  again, 
saying:  ^What  else  can  I  do?  Here  am  I  chained 
to  my  sofa  by  disease.'   I  wrote  then,  taking  back  all 


56  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

I  had  said.  Her  father  was  a  physician,  late  from 
India ;  a  harsh  impracticable  man,  as  I  have  heard, 
his  lightest  word  standing  out  like  laws  of  the  Modes 
and  Persians.  One  day  she  read  some  verses  Brown- 
ing had  written  about  her."  "  Oh  no,"  interrupts 
Mrs.  Carlyle,  "she  wrote  something  about  Brown- 
ing." "  Ah,  well,"  continues  Carlyle,  "  you  shall  give 
the  revised  and  corrected  edition  presently.  As  I 
was  saying,  she  wrote  something  about  him,  compar- 
ing him  to  some  fruit—"  "  Oh,  Mr.  Carlyle !"  ex- 
claims Mrs.  C.  "  She  compared  him,"  continues  Car- 
lyle, "  to  a  nectarine."  "  That's  too  bad,"  says  Mrs. 
Carlyle ;  "  she  compared  his  poetry  to  a  pomegranate 
— it  was  suggested  by  the  title  of  his  poems,  "  Bells 
and  Pomegranates : 

"  'And  from  Browning  some  pomegranate  which,  cut  deep  down  the 
middle, 
Shows  a  heart  within  blood-tinctured  with  a  veined  humanity.' " 

"  I  stand  corrected,"  says  Carlyle,  "  and  the  lines  are 
very  sweet  and  true ;"  and  he  then  proceeded  to  tell 
the  pleasant  romance  on  which  he  set  out  with  a  sub- 
tle appreciation  and  sympathetic  admiration  which 
made  it  sweeter  than  the  tale  of  the  Sleeping  Beauty. 
The  advice  which  Carlyle  gave  to  Miss  Barrett, 
and  which  so  many  will  rejoice  that  she  did  not  fol- 
low, but  induced  him  to  take  back,  was  characteristic. 
That  Carlyle  was  himself  a  poet  all  his  true  readers 
know ;  had  his  early  life  been  happier,  it  is  even 


THOMAS    CAHLYLE.  57 

probable  that  he  might  have  broken  upon  tlie  world 
with  songs  snch  as  his  "  Tragedy  of  the  Night-moth" 
and  "Here  hath  been  dawning  another  blue  day" 
show  him  to  have  been  amply  able  to  sing ;  but  his 
ideal  was  too  literally  a  hurden  to  rise  with  full  free- 
dom on  its  wings.  He  could  rarely  or  never  read 
the  rhymes  of  his  contemporaries  —  Goethe  always 
excepted — without  a  sense  of  some  frivolity  in  that 
mode  of  expression.  The  motto  of  "Past  and  Pres- 
ent," from  Schiller — "Ernst  ist  das  Leben" — was 
deeply  graven  on  Carlyle's  heart.  Thomas  Cooper, 
author  of  the  "Purgatory  of  Suicides"  (dedicated  to 
Carlyle),  like  so  many  others  who  had  suffered  for 
their  efforts  for  reform,  was  befriended  by  Carlyle. 
"Twice,"  says  Cooper,  in  his  Autobiography,  "he 
put  a  five-pound  note  in  my  hand  when  I  was  in 
difficulties,  and  told  me,  with  a  grave  look  of  humor, 
that  if  I  could  never  pay  him  again  he  would  not 
hang  me."  Carlyle  gave  Cooper  more  than  money — 
a  copy  of  "Past  and  Present,"  and  therewith  some 
excellent  advice.  The  letter  is  fine,  and  my  reader 
will  be  glad  to  read  it. 

*' Chelsea,  September  1,  1845. 
"Dear  Sir, — I  have  received  your  poem,  and  will  thank  you  for 
that  kind  gift,  and  for  all  the  friendly  sentiments  you  entertain  tow- 
ards me — which,  as  from  an  evidently  sincere  man,  whatever  we  may 
think  of  them  otherwise,  are  surely  valuable  to  a  man.  I  have  looked 
into  yonr  poem,  and  find  indisputable  traces  of  genius  in  it — a  dark 

3* 


58  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

Titanic  energy  struggling  there,  for  which  we  liope  there  will  be  a 
clearer  daylight  by-and-by.  If  I  might  presume  to  advise,  I  think  I 
would  recommend  you  to  try  your  next  work  in  Prose,  and  as  a  thing 
turning  altogether  on  Facts,  not  Fictions.  Certainly  the  rnusic  that 
is  Aery  traceable  here  might  serve  to  irradiate  into  harmony  far  prof- 
itabler  things  than  what  are  commonly  called  '  Poems,'  for  which,  at 
any  rate,  the  taste  in  these  days  seems  to  be  irrevocably  in  abeyance. 
We  have  too  horrible  a  practical  chaos  round  us,  out  of  which  every 
man  is  called  by  the  birth  of  him  to  make  a  bit  of  Cosmos;  that  seems 
to  me  the  real  Poem  for  a  man  —  especially  at  present.  I  always 
grudge  to  see  any  portion  of  a  man's  musical  talent  (which  is  the  real 
intellect,  the  real  vitality  or  life  of  him)  expended  on  making  mere 
words  rhyme.  These  things  I  say  to  all  my  poetic  friends,  for  I  am 
in  earnest  about  tiiera ;  but  get  almost  nobody  to  believe  me  hitherto. 
From  you  I  shall  get  an  excuse  at  any  rate,  the  purpose  of  my  so 
speaking  being  a  friendly  one  towards  you. 

"  I  will  request  you,  further,  to  accept  this  book  of  mine,  and  to  ap- 
propriate what  you  can  of  it.  'Life  is  a  serious  thing,' as  Schiller 
says,  and  as  you  yourself  practically  know.  These  are  the  words  of  a 
serious  man  about  it ;  they  will  not  altogether  be  without  meaning 
for  you." 

Those  who  have  read  the  "  Purgatory  of  Suicides" 
will  be  able  to  understand  the  extent  to  which  Car- 
Ijle  was  influenced  by  his  sympathies.  A  man  who, 
like  Cooper,  had  been  in  jail  for  Chartist  opinions 
might  be  pretty  sure,  in  those  days,  of  getting  a  cer- 
tificate for  some  "  traces  of  genius "  from  Carlyle. 
My  old  friend  William  Lovett,  a  working-man  and  a 
Radical,  who  had  written  a  forcible  letter  to  tlie  Eng- 
lish people  from  Warwick  Jail,  related  to  me  the 
tenderness  and  warmth  with  which  he  was  received 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  50 

by  Carlyle.  Indeed,  the  author  of  "  Chartism"  wrote 
his  name  so  deep  in  the  hearts  of  old  Kadieals  that 
they  were  never  able  to  look  far  enough  beyond  his 
sympathies  to  read  his  censures  or  his  retractations. 

When  Carlyle  came  to  live  in  London,  it  was  with 
something  of  the  same  feeling  that  animated  the 
Friar  Bernard  when  he  went  to  Eome,  according  to 
the  legend  so  finely  used  by  Emerson  in  his  lecture 
on  "The  Conservative"  (1841).  The  Friar  had  la- 
mented in  his  cell  on  Mont  Cenis  the  crimes  of 
mankind,  and  went  to  Rome  to  reform  the  general 
corruption ;  but  when  he  reached  Eome,  he  was  wel- 
comed in  the  homes  of  the  rich,  found  them  loving 
each  other,  bestowing  alms  on  the  poor,  trying  to 
relieve  the  hard  times.  "Then  the  Friar  Bernard 
went  home  swiftly  with  other  thoughts  than  he 
brought,  saying,  '  This  way  of  life  is  wrong ;  yet 
these  Eomans,  whom  I  prayed  God  to  destroy,  are 
lovers,  they  are  lovers:  what  can  I  do?'"  Carlyle 
was  disappointed  in  the  two  classes — that  from 
which  he  hoped  much,  that  from  which  he  looked 
for  little.  As  his  favorite  heroes  had  been  poor 
men,  working-men  or  even  peasants,  who  had  risen 
above  all  obstacles,  so  did  he  again  and  again  cheer 
and  help  and  idealize  men  like  Tliomas  Cooper  and 
Ebenezer  Elliott  and  Samuel  Bamford,  seeing  in 
them  morning-stars.  But  these  faded  away,  or  set, 
without  casting  any  great  splendors  over  the  world. 


60  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  found  aristocratic  friends,  like 
Lansdowne  and  Ashburton,  all  alive  to  the  evils  of 
the  time,  sympatliizing  with  the  Radicals,  Chartists, 
fighters  against  the  Corn-laws.  Carlyle's  radicalism 
gradually  faded,  and  in  the  Continental  revolutions 
of  184:8  went  out  altogether. 

Four  letters  have  recently  been  laid  before  the 
Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of  Manchester, 
and  printed  in  the  Examiner  there,  of  which  some 
extracts  must  be  quoted  here.  They  were  written 
by  Carlyle  to  Samuel  Bamford,  an  old  Radical  wlio 
had  been  to  prison,  and  had  struggled  by  the  side  of 
Henry  Hunt — idealized  in  George  Eliot's  "Felix 
Holt,  tlie  Radical."  Bamford  began  a  record  of  his 
experiences  in  a  little  book  called  "  Life  of  a  Radi- 
cal," and  sent  a  copy  of  it  to  Carlyle.  It  was  ac- 
knowledged with  enthusiasm  (1843),  and  several  cop- 
ies ordered  by  the  author  at  Chelsea.     He  wrote : 

"I  read  your  book  with  much  interest;  with  a  true  desire  to  hear 
more  and  more  of  the  authentic  news  of  Middleton  and  of  the  honest 
toiling  men  there.  Many  persons  have  a  similar  desire.  I  would 
recommend  you  to  try  whether  there  is  not  yet  more  to  be  said,  per- 
haps, on  some  side  of  that  subject ;  for  it  belongs  to  an  important 
class  in  these  days.  A  man  is  at  all  times  entitled,  or  even  called 
upon  by  occasion,  to  speak  and  write  and  in  all  fit  ways  utter  what  he 
has  himself  gone  through  and  known  and  got  the  mastery  of;  and 
in  truth,  at  bottom,  there  is  nothing  else  that  any  man  has  a  right  to 
write  of.  For  the  rest,  one  principle,  I  think,  in  whatever  farther  you 
write,  may  be  enough  to  guide  you :  that  of  standing  rigorously  by  the 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  61 

fact,  however  naked  it  look.  Fact  is  eternal ;  all  fiction  is  very  transi- 
tory in  comparison.  All  men  are  interested  in  any  man  if  he  will 
speak  the  facts  of  his  life  for  them ;  his  authentic  experience,  which 
corresponds,  as  face  with  face,  to  that  of  all  other  sons  of  Adam." 

The  letter  from  which  this  was  taken  was  dated  at 
Chelsea.  The  next  letter,  acknowledging  a  further 
instalment  of  Bamford's  "  Life,"  is  written  five  years 
later,  and  dated  at  "The  Grange,  Hampshire,"  where 
Carljle  was  staying  with  his  aristocratic  friends.  In 
this  he  writes : 

"There  are  only  two  precepts  I  will  bid  you, once  more,  always 
keep  in  mind :  the  first  is  to  be  brief;  not  to  dwell  on  an  object  one 
instant  after  you  have  made  it  clear  to  the  reader,  and,  on  the  whole, 
to  be  select  in  your  objects  taken  for  description,  dwelling  on  each  in 
proportion  to  its  likelihood  to  interest,  omitting  many  in  which  such 
likelihood  is  doubtful,  and  only  bringing  out  the  more  important  into 
prominence  and  detail.  The  second,  which  indeed  is  still  more  essen- 
tial, but  which  I  need  not  insist  upon,  since  I  see  you  scrupulously 
observe  it,  is  to  be  exact  to  the  truth  in  all  points ;  never  to  hope  to 
mend  a  fact  by  polishing  any  corner  of  it  off  into  fiction,  or  adding 
any  ornament  which  it  had  not,  but  to  give  it  us  always  as  God  gave 
it — that,  I  suppose,  will  turn  out  to  be  best  state  it  could  be  in  !  These 
two  principles,  I  think,  are  the  whole  law  of  the  matter ;  and,  in  fact, 
they  are  the  epitome  of  what  a  sound,  strong,  and  healthy  mind  will, 
by  Nature,  be  led  to  achieve  in  such  an  enterprise ;  wherefore,  per- 
haps, my  best  *  precept '  of  all  were,  to  recommend  Samuel  Bamford 
to  his  own  good  genius  (to  his  own  honest  good  sense  and  healthy  in- 
stincts) and  bid  him  write  or  omit  without  misgivings  whenever  that 
had  clearly  spoken !  And,  on  the  whole,  persevere  and  prosper ;  that 
is  the  wish  we  form  for  you. 

"We  are  here  among  high  people,  to  whom  the  'Passages'  and 
other  writings  of  yours  are  known  :  last  night  I  was  commissioned  by 
Lord  Lansdowne,  to  ask  you  to  send  him  a  copy  of  this  new  work." 


62  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

The  year  in  which  this  last  letter  is  dated  (1848) 
was,  as  I  have  said,  that  revolutionary  year,  in  several 
senses,  which  revolutionized  Carlyle,  aud  began  his 
reaction  against  radicalism.  As  Wordsworth  was 
turned  to  his  extreme  conservatism  by  the  French 
Revolution — during  part  of  which  he  was  in  Paris — 
so  Carlyle  was  repelled  and  disgusted  by  the  events 
of  '48  on  the  Continent.  There  is  just  a  slight  in- 
dication of  the  change  in  the  third  letter  to  Bamford, 
from  which  I  give  an  extract  as  follows : 

"  On  the  whole,  however,  we  must  not  yet  let  you  off,  or  alloAv  you 
to  persuade  yourself  that  you  have  done  with  us.  A  vast  deal  more 
of  knowledge  about  Lancashire  operatives,  and  their  ways  of  living 
and  thinking,  their  miseries  and  advantages,  their  virtues  and  sins, 
still  lies  in  your  experience ;  and  you  must  endeavor,  by  all  good 
methods,  to  get  it  winnowed,  the  chaff  of  it  well  separated  from  the 
wheat,  and  to  let  us  have  the  latter,  as  your  convenience  will  serve. 
To  workers  themselves  you  might  have  much  to  say,  in  the  way  of 
admonition,  encouragement,  instruction,  reproof;  and  the  Captains 
of  Workers,  the  rich  people,  are  very  willing  also  to  listen  to  you,  and 
certain  of  them  will  believe  heartily  whatever  true  thing  you  tell 
them  :  this  is  a  combination  of  auditors  which  nobody  but  yourself 
has  such  hold  of  at  present ;  and  you  must  encourage  yourself  to  do 
with  all  fidelity  whatever  you  can  in  that  peculiar  and  by  no  means 
unimportant  position  you  occupy.  *  Brevity,  sincerity' — and,  in  fact, 
all  sorts  of  manful  virtue — will  have  once  more,  as  they  everywhere  in 
this  world  do,  avail  you." 

It  is  very  faint  though — the  tinge  of  reaction — as 
yet;  only  a  little  more  faith  in  the  "Captains  of 
Workers,"  and  a  shade  less  in  the  workmen.     The 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE.  G3 

letter  was  written  in  January,  1849.  The  next  is  in 
April  of  the  same  year.  In  it  he  encloses  twenty-live 
pounds  presented  by  Lord  Ashburton  to  Bamford,  in 
whose  Life  that  nobleman  had  been  interested.  It 
would  seem  that  Bamford  had  written  and  wished  to 
publish  some  poems ;  that  was  a  thing  Carlyle  never 
failed  to  oppose.  He  says  the  publishers  do  not  want 
poetry ;  the  public  will  not  buy  it ;  poetry  is  a  bug- 
bear : 

"For  my  own  part,  too,  I  own  I  had  much  rather  see  a  sensible 
man,  like  you,  put  down  your  real  thoughts  and  convictions  in  prose, 
than  occupy  yourself  with  fancies  and  imaginations  such  as  are  usu- 
ally dealt  with  in  verse.  The  time  is  in  deadly  earnest;  our  life 
itself,  in  all  times,  is  a  most  earnest  practical  matter,  and  only  inci- 
dentally a  sportful  or  singing  or  rhyming  one :  let  S.  Bamford  con- 
tinue to  tell  us  in  fresh  truthful  prose  the  things  he  has  learned  about 
Lancashire  and  the  world ;  that,  I  must  say,  would  be  my  verdict 
too !" 

So  hard  did  Carlyle  struggle  to  believe  in  the 
British  working-men  !  Reading  these  letters,  I  can 
only  once  more  mourn  tliat  his  early  difficulties  did 
not  make  good  their  threat  of  sending  him  over  to 
America.  Thor  with  his  hammer — and  the  "trip- 
hammer with  seolian  attachment,"  as  Emerson  de- 
scribed it — had  happier  work  awaiting  him  in  the 
'New  World  than  any  he  found  in  the  Old. 

When  Carlyle  visited  Berlin,  he  went  to  a  museum 
there.  "  The  keeper  of  it,"  he  told  me,  "  insisted  on 
showing  me  everything  in  the  place;  but  what  I  went 


64  THOMAS    CARLYLE. 

to  see  was  Friedricli's  clothes.  It  was  as  if  one 
should  go  into  an  inn  to  take  a  chop,  and  they  in- 
sisted lie  innst  eat  everything  in  their  store.  Final- 
ly, after  some  contention,  I  looked  upon  Friedrich's 
military  old  clothes.  And  I  saw  that  I  really  had 
properly  nothing  to  do  with  those  clothes.  Consid- 
erations of  self-respect,  chiefly,  made  me  undertake 
the  ^  Life  of  Friedrich,'  but  it  has  been  all  toil  and 
pain."  Carlyle's  sigh  as  he  spoke  of  "  Friedrich's 
military  old  clothes"  was  more  pathetic  than  any- 
thing in  "  Sartor."  The  hammer  had  done  its  tre- 
mendous stroke  of  work,  but  the  strain  of  the  seolian 
attachment  was  evermore  in  the  minor  key. 

YI. 

Carlyle  and  his  young  wife  had  visited  London 
before  there  was  any  thought  of  their  going  to  reside 
there.  In  February,  1832,  they  were  staying  at  No.  4 
Ampton  Street,  Gray's  Inn  Koad.  Here  one  morn- 
ing Carlyle  received  a  volume  addressed  to  the  au- 
thor of  the  essay  on  "  Characteristics."  It  was  ac- 
knowledged in  this  note : 

"The  writer  of  the  essay  named  'Characteristics'  has  just  re- 
ceived, apparently  from  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  a  volume  entitled  *  Chris- 
tianism,'  for  which  he  hereby  begs  to  express  his  thanks.  The  vol- 
ume shall  be  read :  to  meet  the  author  of  it  personally  would  doubt- 
less be  a  new  gratification.  T.  Carlyle." 

The  volume  alluded  to  bore  on  its  title-page: 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE.  C5 

"  *  Cliristianism  ;  or,  Belief  and  Unbelief  Eeconciled.' 
Being  Exercises  and  Meditations.  '  Mercy  and  Truth 
have  met  together;  Righteousness  and  Peace  have 
kissed  each  other.'  Kot  for  sale ;  only  seventy-five 
copies  printed.  1832."  It  was  a  book  which  com- 
pletely captivated  the  heart  of  Carlyle.  It  was  en- 
larged and  published  in  1853  under  the  title  "  The 
Eeligion  of  the  Heart,"  but  I  cannot  foi-bear  offering 
here  an  extract  from  its  preface,  styled  "  Introduc- 
tory Letter,"  and  signed  Leigh  Hunt : 

"To  begin  tlie  day  with  an  avowed  sense  of  duty  and  a  mntunl 
cheerfulness  of  endeavor  is  at  least  an  earnest  of  its  being  gone  througli 
with  the  better.  The  dry  sense  of  duty,  or  even  of  kindness,  if  rarely 
accompanied  with  a  tender  expression  of  it,  is  but  a  formal  and  dumb 
virtue,  compared  with  a  livelier  sympathy :  and  it  misses  part  of  its 
object,  for  it  contributes  so  much  the  less  to  happiness.  Affection 
loves  to  hear  the  voice  of  affection.  Love  wishes  to  be  told  that  it  is 
beloved.  It  is  humble  enough  to  seek  in  the  reward  of  that  acknowl- 
edgment the  certainty  of  having  done  its  duty.  In  the  pages  before 
you  there  is  as  much  as  possible  of  this  mutual  strengthening  of  be- 
nevolence, and  as  little  of  dogmatism.  Tliey  were  written  in  a  spirit 
of  sincerity,  which  would  not  allow  a  different  proceeding.  .  .  .  Some 
virtues  which  have  been  thought  of  little  comparative  moment,  such 
as  those  which  tend  to  keep  the  body  in  health  and  the  mind  in  good 
temper,  are  impressed  upon  the  aspirant  as  religious  duties.  What 
virtues  can  be  of  greater  consequence  than  those  which  regulate  the 
color  of  the  whole  ground  of  life,  and  effect  the  greatest  purposes  of 
all  virtue  and  all  benevolence  ?  Much  is  made,  accordingly,  not  only 
of  the  bodily  duties,  but  of  the  very  duty  of  cheerfulness,  and  of  set- 
ting a  cheerful  example.  In  a  word,  the  whole  object  is  to  encourage 
evei^body  to  be,  and  to  make,  happy;  to  look  generously,  neverthe- 


66  TIIOIVIAS    CAKLYLE. 

less,  on  such  pains,  as  well  as  pleasure,  as  are  necessary  for  this  pur- 
pose ;  to  seek,  as  much  as  possible,  and  much  more  than  is  common, 
their  own  pleasures  through  the  medium  of  those  of  others ;  to  co- 
operate with  heaven,  instead  of  thinking  it  has  made  us  only  to  mourn 
and  be  resigned ;  to  unite  in  the  great  work  of  extending  knowledge 
and  education ;  to  cultivate  a  reasonable  industry,  and  an  equally  rea- 
sonable enjoyment ;  not  to  think  gloomily  of  this  world,  because  we 
hope  for  a  better ;  not  to  cease  to  hope  for  a  better,  because  we  may 
be  able  to  commence  our  heaven  in  this." 

Carlyle  was  already  weary  of  the  shrill  negations, 
albeit  he  had  accepted  many  of  them,  and  found  in 
such  thoughts  and  aspirations  as  these  the  expression 
of  a  congenial  spirit.  He  had,  indeed,  read  with  ad- 
miration Leigh  Hunt's  previous  and  public  works, 
but  now  he  longed  to  know  him.  The  brief  note 
quoted  seems  to  have  elicited  a  cordial  response 
from  Leigh  Hunt.  Here  is  another  note  from  Car- 
lyle to  Leigh  Hunt,  dated  soon  after  the  last  quoted : 

"  4  Ampton  Street, 
"Gray's  Inn  Road,  2Qth  February,  1832. 
**Dear  Sir, — I  stay  at  home  (scribbling)  till  after  two  o'clock, 
and  shall  be  truly  glad,  any  morning,  to  meet  in  person  a  man  whom 
I  have  long,  in  spirit,  seen  and  esteemed. 

"  Both  my  wife  and  I,  however,  would  reckon  it  a  still  greater  favor 
could  you  come  at  once  in  the  evening,  and  take  tea  with  us,  that  our 
interview  might  be  the  longer  and  freer.  Might  we  expect  you,  for 
instance,  on  Wednesday  night  ?  Our  hour  is  six  o'clock  ;  but  we  will 
alter  it  in  any  way  to  suit  you. 

"We  venture  to  make  this  proposal  because  our  stay  in  town  is 
now  likely  to  be  short,  and  we  should  be  sorry  to  miss  having  free 
speech  of  you.  Believe  me,  dear  sir,  very  sincerely  yours, 

"Thomas  Carlyle." 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  07 

Here,  then,  in  a  rather  dingy  part  of  London,  be- 
gan the  lasting  friendship  between  Carlyle  and  Leigh 
Hunt,  illustrated  in  the  letters  contained  in  Part  HI. 
of  this  work. 

Readers  of  Leigh  Hunt's  "  Autobiography  "  need 
not  be  reminded  of  the  loving  reverence  with  which 
that  author  regarded  Carlyle.  "  I  believe,"  he  wrote, 
"that  what  Mr.  Carlyle  loves  better  than  his  fault- 
finding, with  all  its  eloquence,  is  the  face  of  any  hu- 
man creature  that  looks  suffering  and  loving  and 
sincere;  and  I  believe,  further,  that  if  the  fellow- 
creature  were  suffering  only,  and  neither  loving  nor 
sincere,  but  had  come  to  a  pass  of  agony  in  this  life 
which  put  him  at  the  mercies  of  some  good  man  for 
some  last  help  and  consolation  towards  his  grave, 
even  at  the  risk  of  loss  to  repute,  and  a  sure  amount 
of  pain  and  vexation,  that  man,  if  the  groan  reached 
him  in  its  forlornness,  would  be  Thomas  Carlyle." 

There  is  a  tradition,  I  believe  a  true  one,  that  the 
two  chief  male  characters  in  "  The  Onyx  Eing,"  by 
John  Sterling,  were  meant  to  represent  Carlyle  and 
Goethe  (Collins  and  Walsingham).  Those  who  have 
read  that  charming  romance  will  recognize  in  its 
great-hearted  hero  an  estimate  of  Carlyle  confirma- 
tory of  Leigh  Hunt,  and  even  more  important  as 
coming  from  the  most  intimate  friend  Carlyle  ever 
liad.* 

*  "Not  far,"  said  Maria,  "from  the  point  we  are  approaching, 


68  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

It  was  a  characteristic  of  Carlyle  that,  thongli  he 
really  loved  but  few,  he  never  recalled  his  heart  once 
given.  There  were  many  who  felt  that  (as  I  once 
heard  Mill  say)  "  Carlyle  had  turned  against  all  his 

lives  the  man  we  have  before  spoken  of— the  hermit  Collins.  I  have 
seen  him  often;  and,  strange  as  he  is,  I  like  him  very  much.  There 
is  such  thorough  honesty  about  him,  as  well  as  so  much  queer  un- 
couth kindness,  that  he  interests  me  extremely.  He  is  the  most 
marked  and  original  figure  I  have  ever  heard  of  in  England.  What- 
ever is  usual  or  commonplace  among  us  seems  to  have  influenced 
him  only  by  contraries,  and  called  out  nothing  but  opposition." 

"All  that,"  answered  Walsingham,  "is  very  foolish,  or  at  least 
very  imperfectly  wise.  In  every  age  there  is  good  enough,  if  a  man 
will  put  himself  into  harmony  with  it,  to  enable  him  to  produce  more 
good  out  of  it.  .  .  .  We  are  not  thrown  down  out  of  the  sky  like 
meteoric  stones,  but  are  formed  by  the  same  laws  and  gradual  proc- 
esses as  all  about  us,  and  so  are  adapted  to  it  all,  and  it  to  us.  But, 
no  doubt,  Collins  will  fight  his  way  through  his  present  angry  element 
to  peace  and  activity.     What  employment  has  he  now  ?" 

"  lie  minds  his  beehives.  To  the  few  people  he  CA^er  sees,  he  talks 
quaintly  and  vigorously — I  sometimes  think,  wildly;  but  all  he  says 
has  a  strong  stamp  upon  it,  and  never  could  pass  from  hand  to  hand 
without  notice.  After  having  heard  him,  some  of  his  phrases  keep 
ringing  in  one's  ears,  as  if  he  had  sent  a  goblin  trumpeter  to  haunt 
one  with  the  sound,  for  days  and  nights  after.  But  I  have  always 
felt  that  he  has  more  in  his  mind  than  ever  comes  out  in  the  expres- 
sion ;  and,  odd  as  his  talk  is,  I  should  hardly  call  it  affected  or  con- 
ceited." 

"Ah!  no  doubt  there  must  be  much  genuine  nature  there.  But 
although  these  vehement  lava-lumps  and  burning  coals  Qf  his  may  be 
no  mere  showy  firework,  and  do  shoot  out  from  a  hot  central  furnace, 
I  would  rather  it  were  so  much  cool,  clear  water,  pouring  from  an  in- 
ward lake  of  freshness." 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE.  69 

friends,"  but  this  was  only  true  of  their  radicalism, 
which  he  once  shared.  On  the  other  hand,  Charles 
Kingslej,  who  had  shared  his  reaction  in  political 
ailairs,  kept  away  from  him  a  good  deal  in  later  years 
because  he  felt  himself  to  be  one  of  the  large  num- 
ber implicitly  arraigned  in  the  "  Life  of  Sterling  "  as 
the  disappointed  young  ladies  who  had  taken  the 
veil.  But  Carlyle  always  spoke  affectionately  of 
Kingsley.  "  I  have  a  very  vivid  remembrance,"  he 
once  said,  "  of  Charles  coming  with  his  mother  to 
see  me.  A  lovely  woman  she  was,  with  large,  clear 
eyes,  a  somewhat  pathetic  expression  of  countenance, 
sincerely  interested  in  all  religious  questions.  The 
delicate  boy  she  brought  with  her  had  much  the 
same  expression,  and  sat  listening  with  intense  and 
silent  interest  to  all  tliat  was  said.  He  was  always 
of  an  eager,  loving,  poetic  nature." 

With  Alfred  Tennyson  his  frequent  intercourse 
was  interrupted  when  the  poet  w^ent  to  reside  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight.     Until  then  they  used  to  sit  with  a 

"  I  can  fancy  him  saying — the  All  is  right.  There  must  be  a  Fire- 
God  as  well  as  a  AVater-God.  If  there  were  no  fire-forces  seething 
and  blasting,  for  aught  you  know  the  fountains  and  flood-forces  would 
stagnate  into  slime.  ..." 

"All  very  true.  But  I  stoop  to  drink  of  the  stream  ;  and  I  hasten 
away  from  the  eruption." 

"In  this  case,"  replied  Maria,  laughing,  "the  eruption  saves  you 
the  trouble.  It  seeks  no  one,  and  loves  its  solitude"  ("The  Onyx 
Ring ;"  published  in  Blackwood's  Magazine,  1838). 


70 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 


little  circle  of  friends  under  the  one  tree  tliat  made 
the  academy  of  the  Chelsea  home,  smoke  long  pipes, 
and  interchange  long  arguments.  But  they  remained 
warm  friends ;  and  when  Tennyson  visited  London, 
they  generally  met,  and  were  very  apt  to  relapse  into 
the  old  current  of  conversation  that  had  begun  under 
the  tree.  I  may  mention  here  the  delicacy  of  Carlyle 
towards  Tennyson  when  they  were  both  offered  titles 
at  the  same  time  by  Disraeli.  Carlyle  having  writ- 
ten his  reply  declining  the  offer,  withheld  it  care- 
fully until  the  answer  of  Tennyson  had  been  made 
known,  fearing  that  the  latter  might  in  some  degree 
be  supposed  to  have  been  influenced  by  the  course 
he  himself  had  resolved  to  adopt. 

Some  of  Carlyle's  earlier  friends  had  been  drawn 
to  him  by  the  dazzling  attractions  of  "  Sartor  Hesar- 
tus."  A  contemporary  writer  reports  of  the  audi- 
ences which  attended  the  lectures  on  "  Heroes  "  that 
"they  chiefly  consisted  of  persons  of  rank  and 
wealth,"  and  he  added, "  There  is  something  in  his 
manner  which  must  seem  very  uncouth  to  London 
audiences  of  the  most  respectable  class,  accustomed 
as  they  are  to  the  polished  deportment  which  is  usu- 
ally exhibited  in  Willis's  or  the  Hanover  rooms." 
Not  a  few  of  these  Turveydrop  folk  fell  back  when 
they  found  whither  that  pillar  of  Are  was  leading 
them. 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  71 

YIL 

Dr.  John  Carlyle  told  me,  witli  reference  to  the 
quaint  framework  of  his  brother's  unique  book  ("Sar- 
tor Kesartus"),  that  he  had  no  doubt  it  was  suggested 
by  the  accounts  be  (Dr.  C.)  used  to  give  him  of  his 
experiences  in  Germany  while  pursuing  his  medical 
studies  there.  There  was  a  Schelling  Club,  which 
Schelling  himself  used  to  visit  now  and  then,  de- 
voted to  beer,  smoke,  and  philosophy.  The  free,  and 
often  wild,  speculative  talks  of  these  cloud- veiled 
(with  tobacco-smoke)  intelligences  of  the  transcen- 
dental Olympus  amused  his  brother  Thomas  much  in 
the  description  and  rehearsal,  and  the  doctor  said  he 
recalled  many  of  the  comments  and  much  of  the 
laughter  in  "Sartor  Resartus."  Apart  from  this 
framework,  there  never  was  a  book  which  came 
more  directly  from  the  heart  and  life  of  a  man ;  and 
being  for  that  very  reason  a  chapter  of  the  world's 
experience,  it  was  a  word  which  came  to  its  own  only 
to  find  a  slow  reception.  It  was  a  long  time  before 
it  could  find  a  publisher — this  great  book  into  wdiich 
five  years  of  labor  had  gone — but  at  last  (1833)  Mr. 
Fraser  consented  to  publish  it  in  his  magazine,  much 
to  the  consternation  of  his  readers. 

"When  it  began  to  appear,"  said  Carlyle,  "poor 
Fraser,  who  had  courageously  undertaken  it,  found 
himself  in  great  trouble.     The  public  had  no  liking 


72  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

whatever  for  that  kind  of  tiling.  Letters  lay  piled 
mountain  high  on  his  table,  the  burden  of  them  be- 
ing, *  Either  stop  sending  your  magazine  to  me,  or 
stop  printing  that  crazy  stuff  about  clothes.'  I  ad- 
vised him  to  hold  on  a  little  longer,  and  asked  if 
there  were  no  voices  in  a  contrary  sense.  *  Just  two 
— a  Mr.  Emerson,  of  New  England,  and  a  Catholic 
priest  at  Cork.'  These  said,  *  Send  me  Fraser  so 
long  as  "Sartor"  continues  in  it.'"  Some  years 
afterwards  Carlyle  visited  Cork,  and  found  out  his 
Koman  Catholic  reader,  and  he  used  to  relate,  with 
some  drollery,  how  lie  was  kept  waiting  for  some 
time  because  the  servant  was  unwilling  to  disturb 
him  during  some  hours  of  penance  and  prayer  with 
which  he  was  engaged  in  the  garden.  "  The  inter- 
view did  not  amount  to  much." 

"  Sartor  Kesartus  "  first  appeared  in  book  form  in 
New  England  (1835),  edited  by  Emerson,  to  whom 
also  is  to  be  credited  the  collection  of  Carlyle's  mis- 
cellaneous papers.  Carlyle  loved  to  dwell  upon  the 
recognition  he  had  received  from  New  England  in 
the  years  when  he  w^as  comparatively  unknown  in  his 
own  country.  "  There  was  really  something  mater- 
nal in  the  way  America  treated  me.  The  first  book 
I  ever  saw  of  mine,  the  first  I  could  look  upon  as 
wholly  my  own,  was  sent  me  from  that  country,  and 
I  think  it  was  the  most  pathetic  event  of  my  life 
when  I  saw  it  laid  on  my  table.     The  ^French  Eev- 


THOMAS   CARLYLE. 


73 


olution,'  too,  wliich  had  alarmed  everybody  here, 
and  brought  me  no  penny,  was  taken  up  in  America 
with  enthusiasm,  and  as  much  as  one  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  sent  to  me  for  it."  "  Sartor  Kesartus  " 
and  the  "Miscellanies"  were  both  published  in  Eng- 
land in  book  form  in  1838,  after  their  appearance  in 
America. 

Mr.  Carlyle  was  much  urged  about  that  time  to   / 
visit  the  United  States,  and  had  intended  to  do  so ; 
he  was,  I  believe,  only  prevented   from   fulfilling 
his  intention  by  the  pressure  of  his  labors  on  the 
"French  Ee volution" — more   particularly  by  the     \ 
necessity  of  reproducing  the  first  volume  of  it,  whichj 
had  been  burned  by  a  servant-girl. 

There  is  a  letter  of  which  my  reader  will  be  glad 
to  read  a  portion  in  this  memoir,  and  in  connection 
with  what  has  been  said  concerning  the  home  and 
circumstances  amid  which  "Sartor  Eesartus"  was 
written.  It  is  Carlyle's  letter  to  Goethe,  published 
in  the  latter's  translation  of  the  "  Life  of  Schiller  " 
(Frankfort,  1830): 

*'  You  inquire  with  such  warm  interest  respecting  our  present  abode 
and  occupations,  that  I  feel  bound  to  say  a  few  words  about  both, 
while  there  is  still  room  left.  Dumfries  is  a  pleasant  town,  contain- 
ing about  fifteen  thousand  inhabitants,  and  may  be  considered  the 
centre  of  the  trade  and  judicial  system  of  a  district  which  possesses 
some  importance  in  the  sphere  of  Scottish  industry.  Our  residence 
is  not  in  the  town  itself,  but  fifteen  miles  to  the  northwest,  among  the 
granite  hills  and  the  black  morasses  which  stretch  westward  through 


74 


THOMAS   CARLYLE. 


Galloway  almost  to  the  Irish  Sea.  In  this  wilderness  of  heath  and 
rock  our  estate  stands  forth  a  green  oasis,  a  tract  of  ploughed,  partly 
enclosed  and  planted  ground,  where  com  ripens,  and  trees  afford  a 
shade,  although  surrounded  by  sea-mews  and  rough  -  wooled  sheep. 
Here,  with  no  small  effort,  have  we  built  and  furnished  a  neat,  sub- 
stantial dwelling ;  here,  in  the  absence  of  professorial  or  other  office, 
we  live  to  cultivate  literature  according  to  our  strength,  and  in  our 
own  peculiar  way.  We  wish  a  joyful  growth  to  the  rose  and  flowers 
of  our  garden ;  we  hope  for  health  and  peaceful  thoughts  to  further 
our  aims.  The  roses,  indeed,  are  still  in  part  to  be  planted,  but  they 
blossom  already  in  anticipation.  Two  ponies,  which  carry  us  every- 
where, and  the  mountain  air,  are  the  best  medicines  for  weak  nerves. 
This  daily  exercise — to  which  I  am  much  devoted— is  my  only  recre- 
ation :  for  this  nook  of  ours  is  the  loveliest  in  Britain — six  miles  re- 
moved from  any  one  likely  to  visit  me.  Here  Rousseau  would  have 
been  as  happy  as  on  his  island  of  St.  Pierre.  My  town  friends,  in- 
deed, ascribe  my  sojourn  here  to  a  similar  disposition,  and  forbode  me 
no  good  result.  But  I  came  hither  solely  with  the  design  to  simplify 
my  way  of  life,  and  to  secure  the  independence  through  which  I  could 
be  enabled  to  remain  true  to  myself.  This  bit  of  earth  is  our  own ; 
here  we  can  live,  write,  and  think  as  best  pleases  ourselves,  even 
though  Zoilus  himself  were  to  be  crowned  the  monarch  of  literature. 
Nor  is  the  solitude  of  such  great  importance ;  for  a  stage-coach  takes 
us  speedily  to  Edinburgh,  which  we  look  upon  as  our  British  Weimar. 
And  have  I  not,  too,  at  this  moment  piled  up  upon  the  table  of  my 
little  library  a  whole  cart-load  of  French,  German,  American,  and 
English  journals  and  periodicals — whatever  may  be  their  worth  ?  Of 
antiquarian  studies,  too,  there  is  no  lack.  From  some  of  our  heights 
I  can  descry,  about  a  day's  journey  to  the  west,  the  hill  where  Agric- 
ola  and  his  Romans  left  a  camp  behind  them.  At  the  foot  of  it  I 
was  born,  and  there  both  father  and  mother  still  live  to  love  me.  And 
so  one  must  let  Time  work. 

*'But  whither  am  I  wandering?    Let  me  confess  to  you  I  am  un- 
certain about  my  future  literary  activity,  and  would  gladly  learn  your 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  75 

opinion  concerning  it ;  at  least  pray  write  to  me  again,  and  speedily, 
that  I  may  feel  myself  united  to  you.  The  only  piece  of  any  import- 
ance that  I  have  written  since  I  came  here  is  an  *  Essay  on  Burns.' 
Perhaps  you  never  heard  of  him,  and  yet  he  is  a  man  of  the  most 
decided  genius ;  but  bom  in  the  lowest  rank  of  peasant  life,  and 
through  the  entanglements  of  his  peculiar  position  was  at  length 
mournfully  wrecked,  so  that  what  he  effected  was  comparatively  un- 
important. He  died,  in  the  middle  of  his  career,  in  the  year  1796. 
We  English,  especially  the  Scotch,  loved  Burns  more  than  any  poet 
that  had  lived  for  centuries.  I  have  often  been  struck  by  the  fact 
that  he  was  born  a  few  months  before  Schiller,  in  the  year  1759,  and 
that  neither  of  them  ever  heard  the  other's  name.  They  shone  like 
stars  in  opposite  hemispheres,  or,  if  you  will,  the  thick  mist  of  earth 
intercepted  their  reciprocal  light." 

Goethe,  commenting  upon  this  letter,  says  that 
Burns  was  not  unknown  to  him.  He  speaks  in  the 
highest  terms  of  the  exactness  with  which  Carljle 
had  entered  into  the  life  and  individuality  of  Schil- 
ler, and  of  all  the  German  authors  whom  he  had  in- 
troduced to  his  countrymen.  He  prefaces  his  trans- 
lation of  the  "  Life  of  Schiller  "  with  two  pictures  of 
the  residence  of  Carlyle.  In  the  year  after  the  above 
letter  was  written,  Mr.  Carlyle  wrote  another  letter 
to  Goethe  in  reply  to  one  from  the  latter,  which  I 
have  not  seen  published  in  England,  but  is  interest- 
ing as  indicating  the  feeling  in  that  country  towards 
German  literature  up  to  the  time  at  which  he  began 
his  work.  This  letter  was  written  on  December  22, 
1829,  and  in  it  Carlyle  says,  "  You  will  be  pleased 
to  hear  that  the  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  for- 
eign, and  especially  of  German,  literature  spreads 


76  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

with  increasing  rapidity  wherever  the  English  tongue 
rules ;  so  that  now  at  the  Antipodes,  in  New  Holland 
itself,  the  wise  men  of  your  country  utter  their  wis- 
dom. I  have  lately  heard  that  even  in  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  our  two  English  universities,  hitherto 
looked  upon  as  the  stopping-place  of  our  peculiar 
insular  conservatism,  a  movement  in  such  things  has 
begun.  Your  Niebuhr  has  found  a  clever  translator 
at  Cambridge,  and  at  Oxford  two  or  three  Germans 
have  already  enough  employment  in  teaching  their 
language.  The  new  light  may  be  too  strong  for  cer- 
tain eyes,  yet  no  one  can  doubt  the  happy  conse- 
quences that  shall  ultimately  follow  therefrom.  Let 
nations,  as  individuals,  only  know  each  other,  and 
mutual  jealousy  will  change  to  mutual  helpfulness; 
and  instead  of  natural  enemies,  as  neighboring  coun- 
tries too  often  are,  we  shall  all  be  natural  friends." 

YIII. 

What  Carlyle's  parents  hoped  he  would  become — 
a  preacher — that  he  was,  in  a  far  wider  way  than 
they  could  have  anticipated.  His  casual,  or^  even 
half-cynical,  remarks,  bearing  on  religious  matters, 
were  searching  sermons.  In  Christmas  week,  he 
said  to  his  friend  William  Allingham  that  he  had 
observed  an  unusual  number  of  drunken  men  in  the 
street,  and  "then,"  he  quietly  added,  "I  remembered 
that  it  was  the  birthday  of  the  Eedeemer."     Car- 


THOMAS   CAELTLE.  77 

lyle's  very  oaths  were  more  devout  than  many  ben- 
edictions. I  have  heard  none  of  the  "  sham  damns 
which  disgust"  (as  Emerson  said  in  his  lecture  on 
"Superlatives"),  but  great  sentences  pronounced  on 
wrong  with  the  solemnity  of  a  foreman  speaking  for 
an  invisible  jury.  Being  in  Scotland  at  the  house  of 
an  old  acquaintance,  whom  he  knew  to  be  a  sceptic, 
Carlyle  was  shocked,  when  dinner  came,  by  the  com- 
plaisance with  which  his  entertainer — evidently  be- 
cause of  the  neighbors  present — entered  upon  a  sanc- 
timonious "  grace-bef ore-meat "  of  the  long  Scotch 

pattern  ;  and  cut  it  short  by  exclaiming,  "  Oh, , 

this  is  damnable !" 

I  believe  that  a  careful  criticism  of  Carlyle's  style 
of  writing,  which  has  puzzled  so  many,  would  show 
it  to  be  largely  a  scholastic  exaltation  and  expansion 
of  the  Dumfriesshire  dialect.  And  when  any  com- 
prehensive statement  of  his  religious  position  is  made 
(if  it  ever  is,  which  is  doubtful),  it  will  be  found  that 
the  "  reverences  "  which  germinated  at  his  mother's 
knee  survived  in  him  the  decay  of  their  objects  and 
symbols.  Nay,  even  the  old  phrases  were  quaintly 
transfigured  in  the  speech  of  this  heretical  Cove- 
nanter. He  sometimes  used  the  metaphors  of  Ge- 
henna in  consigning  dogmas  about  the  same  to  the 
place  where  he  thought  they  belonged.  It  was,  I 
believe,  the  great  pain  of  his  life  that  he  could  reach 
no  solid  shore  beyond  the  endless  quicksands  of  ne- 


78  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

gation  upon  which  he  had  entered.  He  could  not, 
with  many  of  his  friends,  find  any  spiritual  hope  or 
significance  in  the  theory  of  "Evolution,"  and  his 
dislike  of  Comte's  formulas  repelled  him  from  the 
"Church  of  Humanity:"  albeit  the  Evolutionists 
find  texts  enough  in  his  own  doctrine  of  Force,  and 
the  "  Keligion  of  Humanity  "  may  be  equally  said  to 
have  been  heralded  in  the  "Essay  on  Characteris- 
tics." However,  in  the  matter  of  belief,  here  was 
a  powerful  warrior,  courageous,  perfectly  equipped, 
without  post  to  defend  or  battle  to  fight. 

"  To  what  religion  do  I  belong  ?"  wrote  Schiller. 
"To  none  thou  mightst  name.  And  wherefore  to 
none?  Because  of  my  religion."  It  was  the  fervor 
of  Carlyle's  religion  which  led  him  to  turn  aw^ay 
from  the  Scotch  Church  with  a  breaking  heart :  it 
was  that  which  ignored  each  hallowed  dome  which 
for  him  shut  out  the  vault  of  pure  reason,  beneath 
which  he  knelt  with  never-ceasing  wonder  and  aspi- 
ration. He  acknowledged  that  the  English  Church 
was  "  the  apotheosis  of  decency,"  but  they  who  look- 
ed upon  its  articles  as  the  thirty-nine  pillars  of  the 
universe  were  apt  to  find  those  pillars  toppling  upon 
them  before  this  Samson.  The  sects,  for  him,  re- 
mained to  the  end,  each  some  small  umbrella  which 
its  devotees  imagined  to  be  the  vault  of  heaven. 
Many  years  ago  he  was  persuaded  by  some  friends 
in  the  south  of  England,  whom  he  was  visiting,  to 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  79 

go  to  a  Nonconformist  chapel  on  Sunday.  It  was,  I 
believe,  for  the  first  time  in  many  years  that  he  had 
entered  either  church  or  chapel,  and  was  destined  to 
be  the  last.  "  The  preacher's  prayer,"  he  said,  "  filled 
me  with  consternation.  '  O  Lord,  thou  hast  plenty 
of  treacle  up  there ;  send  a  stream  of  it  down  to  us !' 
That  was  about  the  amount  of  it.  He  did  not  seem 
in  the  least  to  know  that  what  such  as  he  needed 
was  rather  a  stream  of  brimstone.  But  this  was  only 
the  vulgar  form  of  what  I  have  sometimes  found  be- 
neath the  more  refined  phraseology  of  '  distinguished 
divines,'  who,  for  the  most  part,  know  least  of  wliat 
they  pretend  to  know  most.  What  do  such  know 
of  religion  ?  of  the  absolute  veracity,  the  passionate 
love  of  truth  and  rectitude,  unspeakable  horror  of 
the  reverse,  which  are  Eeligion?  How  many  of 
them  are  laboring  to  save  the  people  from  their  real 
Satan — alcohol,  which  is  turning  millions  of  them 
into  demons  ?  The  clergy  are  trying  to  make  up  for 
the  vacancy  left  by  the  decay  of  all  real  Belief  with 
theatrical  displays,  candles,  and  costumes.  Every- 
thing goes  to  the  theatre.  'Enter  Christ!'  That 
will  soon  be  the  stage-direction.  But  it  is  all  another 
way  of  saying  'Exit  Christ' — which  states  the  fact 
more  nearly.  Charles  I.  established  the  English 
Church  in  order  to  keep  his  head  on  his  shoulders. 
A  good  many  support  it  now  for  the  like  reason,  and 
with  as  little  success.     Undoubtedly  there  are  some 


80  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

good  men  in  it.  There  is  Frederic  Maurice,  one  of 
the  most  pious-minded  men  in  England.  He  once 
wrote  a  novel  called  ^Eustace  Conway:'  he  would 
like  it  suppressed :  it  is  a  key  to  him.  A  young  man 
gets  into  mental  doubts ;  a  priest  comes  and  sprinkles 
moonshine  over  him,  and  then  all  is  clear !  Alas, 
poor  Sterling !  That  is  what  happened  to  him  for  a 
little  time.  He  got  bravely  through  it ;  but  when  he 
did,  it  became  painfully  evident  to  us  that  he  was 
too  fine  and  thin  to  live  among  us  here." 

Carlyle  is  still  thought  by  many  people  to  have 
been  severe  and  unsympathetic,  and  that  this  was 
owing  to  the  despairing  view  of  the  world  which 
he  so  often  took.  But  I  remember  that,  when  our 
child  died  many  years  ago  (we  lonely  in  a  foreign 
land),  Carlyle  came  and  sat  with  us ;  and  his  tender- 
ness, his  healing  words,  his  inspiration  of  courage, 
made  the  one  rainbow  on  that  black  cloud.  True 
to  his  experience  that  in  work  alone  could  sorrow 
escape  from  its  beleaguering  cares,  he,  with  kindly 
art,  suggested  to  me  a  congenial  literary  task.  Ah, 
when  one  was  in  grief  and  pain,  what  a  providential 
heart  he  had !  What  sincerity  with  his  wisdom, 
what  bountifulness  with  his  light  and  heat,  and  su- 
periority to  those  selfish  pettinesses,  small  personal 
aims,  which  too  often  mingle  their  smoke  with  the 
fine  flame  of  genius ! 

It  was  in  speaking  of  our  grief,  and  that  of  others. 


THOMAS   CAKLTLE.  81 

that  he  said :  "  I  still  find  more  in  Goethe  about  all 
high  things  than  in  any  other.  His  gleams  come 
now  from  a  line,  or  even  a  word,  or  next  a  scrap  of 
poetry.  He  did  not  believe  in  a  gray-haired  Sov- 
ereign seated  in  the  heavens,  but  in  the  Supreme 
Laws.  A  loyal  soul !  Concerning  things  unknown 
he  has  spoken  the  best  word — Entsagung.  In  think- 
ing about  immortality,  we  jump  to  selfish  conclu- 
sions, and  support  them  as  if  they  were  piety :  even 
if  we  sanctify  our  conclusion  by  associating  with  it 
our  departed  friends  and  clinging  affections,  it  is 
something  you  want.  But  nothing  can  be  known. 
Goethe  says — Entsagung,  Submission!  Renuncia- 
tion !  That  is  near  to  it.  I  studied  the  word  long 
before  I  knew  what  he  meant  by  it;  but  I  know 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  rising  to  that  state  of  mind, 
and  that  it  is  the  best.  Shall  it  be  as  I  wish  ?  It 
shall  be  as  it  is.  So,  and  not  otherwise.  To  any 
and  every  conceivable  result  the  loyal  man  can  and 
will  adapt  himself;  face  that  possibility  until  he 
becomes  its  equal ;  and  when  any  clear  idea  is  reach- 
ed, bend  to  that  till  it  becomes  ideal.  Entsagung 
shall  then  mean,  'tis  best  even  so !" 

A  characteristic  of  Carlyle  was  his  sympathetic 
interest  in  all  animal  life.  Often  when  walking  in 
the  park  he  would  pause  to  observe  the  sparrows 
which,  hardly  getting  out  of  the  way,  would  pertly 

turn  their  heads  and  look  at  him  as  landlords  might 
4* 


82  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

observe  a  suspicious  character  trespassing  upon  their 
estate.  This  seemed  to  amuse  him  much.  He  had 
always  a  severe  anathema  for  vivisection,  and  all 
cruelty  to  animals.  "  ]^ever  can  I  forget  the  horror 
with  which  I  once  saw  a  living  mouse  put  into  the 
cage  of  a  rattlesnake  in  the  Zoological  Gardens,  to  be 
luncheon  for  that  reptile.  The  serpent  fixed  upon 
it  his  hard  glittering  eyes,  and  the  poor  little  creat- 
ure stood  paralyzed,  trembling  with  terror.  It  seem- 
ed to  me  a  cruelty  utterly  unjustifiable,  and  one  to 
be  unceasingly  protested  against."  The  compassion 
of  Burns  for  the  field-mouse,  whose  home  and  hopes 
his  plough  had  overthrown,  was  in  Carlyle's  tone  of 
voice  in  this  and  much  else  that  he  said  concern- 
ing his  humble  contemporaries  of  the  animal  world. 
No  reader  of  "  Sartor  Eesartus  "  can  lose  the  image 
of  the  little  boy  at  Ecclefechan,  therein  called  En- 
tepfuhl,  dreaming  over  the  migration  and  return  of 
the  swallows.  "  Why  mention  our  Swallows,  which, 
out  of  far  Africa,  as  I  learned,  threading  their  way 
over  seas  and  mountains,  corporate  cities  and  bellig- 
erent nations,  yearly  found  themselves,  with  the 
month  of  May,  snug  lodged  in  our  Cottage  Lobby  ? 
The  hospitable  Father  (for  cleanliness'  sake)  had 
fixed  a  little  bracket  plumb  under  their  nest :  there 
they  built,  caught  flies,  and  twittered,  and  bred ;  and 
all,  I  chiefly,  loved  them.  Bright,  nimble  creatures, 
who  taught  you  the  mason-craft ;  nay,  stranger  still, 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  83 

gave  you  a  masonic  incorporation,  almost  social  po- 
lice ?  For  if,  by  ill  chance,  and  when  time  pressed, 
your  House  fell,  have  I  not  seen  five  neighborly 
Helpers  appear  next  day,  and  swashing  to  and  fro, 
with  animated,  loud,  long-drawn  chirpings,  and  ac- 
tivity almost  super-hirundine,  complete  it  again  be- 
fore nightfall?"  This  picture  rose  again  before  me 
one  day  \^en  Carlyle  was  speaking  of  an  experi- 
ence of  the^hilosopher  Kant,  when  he  was  walking 
in  a  wood,  near  the  wall  of  a  ruin.  He  heard  a 
clamor  among  the  swallows,  higli  up  on  the  wall,  so 
loud  that  it  made  him  pause.  The  birds  were  in 
shrill  debate  about  something.  Presently  there  was 
a  pause,  then  a  long,  low,  plaintive  note  from  one  of 
them;  and  immediately  thereafter  a  nestling,  not 
yet  able  to  fly,  fell  to  the  ground.  Kant  concluded 
that  the  debate  was  that  of  a  council  which  decreed 
that  there  was  not  nest-room  or  food  enough  for  all 
the  little  ones ;  one  must  be  sacrificed ;  and  the  one 
low,  plaintive  note  was  that  of  the  mother  submit- 
ting to  the  fatal  conclusion.  Kant  picked  up  the 
fallen  swallow,  which  was  not  yet  dead,  and  looked 
into  its  eye.  How  deep  it  was !  As  he  gazed  in  it 
he  seemed  to  be  looking  into  an  infinite  depth,  a 
mystical  vista.  "  This  struggle  for  existence,"  said 
Carlyle,  "  of  which  our  scientific  men  say  so  much,  is 
infinitely  sad.  We  see  it  all  around  us.  Our  human 
reptiles  are  outcomes  of  it.     Somebody  told  me  of  a 


84  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

subtle  fellow,  a  small  lad,  who  heard  a  poor  rustic, 
-warned  to  take  care  of  his  money  in  the  crowd,  say 
he  had  only  a  pound  and  meant  to  keep  it  in  his 
mouth.  Soon  after  the  street-boy  crosses  the  poor 
man's  path,  and  sets  up  a  cry,  *  You  give  me  my 
money !'  A  crowd  having  gathered,  the  boy  explains 
that  he  had  been  sent  by  his  poor  mother  with  a 
sovereign  to  buy  something,  had  fallen,  and  as  the 
money  rolled  away  the  man  had  picked  it  up  and 
put  it  in  his  mouth.  The  crowd  cried  '  Shame !'  and 
lie  from  the  country  had  to  disgorge  and  get  home  as 
he  could.  The  story  is  credible  of  a  boy  struggling 
for  existence  in  this  vast  abyss  of  greed  and  want. 
Survival  of  the  fittest !  Much  that  they  write  about 
it  appears  to  me  anything  but  desirable.  I  was  read- 
ing lately  some  speculations  which  seemed  to  be  fine 
white  flour,  but  I  presently  found  it  was  pulverized 
glass  I  had  got  into  my  mouth — no  nourishment  in 
it  at  all,  but  the  reverse.  What  they  call  Evolution 
is  no  new  doctrine.  I  can  remember  when  Erasmus 
Darwin's  'Zoonomia'  was  still  supplying  subjects 
for  discussion,  and  there  was  a  debate  among  the 
students  whether  man  were  descended  from  an  oys- 
ter or  a  cabbage.  I  believe  the  oj^ster  carried  the 
day.  That  the  w^eak  and  incompetent  pass  away, 
while  the  strong  and  adequate  prevail  and  continue, 
appears  trae  enough  in  animal  and  in  human  histo- 
ry ;  but  there  are  mysteries  in  life,  and  in  the  uni- 


THOMAS    CAELYLE.  85 

verse,  not  explained  by  that  discovery.  They  should 
be  approached  with  reverence.  An  irreverent  mind 
is  really  a  senseless  mind.  I  have  always  said  that 
I  would  rather  have  written  those  pages  in  Goethe's 
'Wilhelm  Meister'  about  the  *  Three  Reverences' 
than  all  the  novels  which  have  appeared  in  my  day." 

IX. 

Notwithstanding  his  affection  for  Professor  Tyn- 
dall,  Carlyle,  in  scientific  matters,  clung  to  the  great 
masters  of  the  past,  such  as  Faraday,  for  many  years 
his  personal  friend,  and  Franklin.  He  often  spoke 
of  Franklin  as  America's  greatest  man,  and  told 
good  anecdotes  of  him  ;  among  others,  one  I  had  not 
heard,  of  his  going  to  see  a  church-steeple  at  Streat- 
ham,  near  London,  which  had  been  struck  by  light- 
ning. Franklin  predicted  that,  if  rebuilt  in  the 
same  way,  the  steeple  would  be  again  struck — and 
that  was  just  what  happened. 

The  liostility  which  his  father  manifested  towards 
all  works  of  fiction  (as  "downright  lies")  turned,  in 
Carlyle,  to  the  very  severe  standard  of  veracity  by 
which  he  judged  all  such  works.  He  had  an  admi- 
ration for  Charles  Dickens,  especially  after  hearing 
that  author  read  some  of  his  own  works.  He  could, 
he  said,  hardly  recall  any  theatrical  representation 
he  had  witnessed  in  which  the  whole  company  had 
exhibited  more  variety  of  effect  than  came  from  the 


86  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

play  of  Dickens's  voice  and  features.  Thackeray 
was  one  of  his  friends  during  life.  One  evening  he 
pointed  out  to  me,  when  we  were  walking,  an  inn 
to  which  Thackeray  once  retired  to  escape  calls  and 
company  when  he  had  on  hand  a  piece  of  work  re- 
quiring special  care  and  solitude.  "  I  learned  where 
he  was  by  his  sending  around  to  our  house  for  a 
Bible.  Better  work  might  come  of  the  writers  of 
books  if  they  knew  more  of  this  working  in  secret 
with  their  Bible  beside  them.  Some  novelists  of 
our  time  appear  to  think  that  study  and  veracity 
may  be  dispensed  with  in  their  art.  I  undertook  to 
read  a  famous  novel  recently,  in  which  a  personage, 
a  carpenter,  is  described  as  putting  in  the  door-panel 
after  the  rest  of  the  door  was  completed.  The  fa- 
mous novelist  knew  nothing  at  all  about  the  making 
of  a  door.     I  got  no  farther  with  that  book." 

On  one  occasion,  a  number  of  persons  being  pres- 
ent, a  scholarly  person  (a  nobleman)  asked  Carlyle 
his  opinion  concerning  works  of  imagination,  of 
high  ability,  but  containing  incidents  not  quite  dec- 
orous—  such  books  as  "Tom  Jones"  and  "Koder- 
ick  Kandom."  The  main  question  was  w^hether 
works  of  such  character  might  safely  be  permitted 
to  women.  "  Quite  as  safely  as  to  men,"  said  Car- 
lyle. "If  the  book  is  really  valuable  in  other  re- 
spects, I  should  advise  them  to  read  such  and  keep 
quiet  about  it."     It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered,  when 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  87 

the  woman  who  lived  by  his  side  is  remembered,  that 
Carlyle  made  a  clause  in  his  conservatism  (though  a 
curiously  cautious  one)  in  favor  of  the  women  who 
were  seeking  medical  education  in  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity. While  filling  the  office  of  Lord  Rector,  his 
opinion  on  that  subject  was  asked  by  a  friend  there. 
The  answer  returned  and  privately  used  with  good 
effect  there,  in  the  contest,  was  as  follows : 

"5  Cheyne  How,  Chelsea,  February  9,  1871. 

"Dear  Sir,— It  is  with  reluctance  that  I  write  anything  to  you 
on  this  subject  of  Female  Emancipation  which  is  now  rising  to  such 
a  height,  and  I  do  it  only  on  the  strict  condition  that  whatever  I  say 
shall  be  private,  and  nothing  of  it  get  into  newspapers.  The  truth 
is,  the  topic,  for  five-and-twenty  years  past,  especially  for  the  last 
three  or  four,  has  been  a  mere  sorrow  to  me,  one  of  the  most  afflicting 
proofs  of  the  miserable  anarchy  that  prevails  in  human  society,  and 
I  have  avoided  thinking  of  it,  except  when  fairly  compelled.  What 
little  has  become  clear  to  me  on  it,  I  shall  now  endeavor  to  tell  you. 

"In  the  first  place,  then,  I  have  never  doubted  but  the  true  and 
noble  function  of  a  woman  in  this  world  was,  is,  and  forever  will  be, 
that  of  being  a  Wife  and  Helpmate  to  a  worthy  man,  and  discharging 
well  the  duties  that  devolve  on  her  in  consequence  as  mother  of  chil- 
dren and  Mistress  of  a  Household — duties  high,  noble,  silently  im- 
portant as  any  that  can  fall  to  a  human  creature;  duties  which,  if 
well  discharged,  constitute  woman,  in  a  soft,  beautiful,  and  almost 
sacred  way,  the  Queen  of  the  World,  and  which,  by  her  natural  fac- 
ulties, graces,  strengths,  and  weaknesses  are  every  way  indicated  as 
specially  hers.  The  true  destiny  of  a  woman,  therefore,  is  to  wed  a 
man  she  can  love  and  esteem,  and  to  lead  noiselessly  under  his  pro- 
tection, with  all  the  wisdom,  grace,  and  heroism  that  is  in  her,  the 
life  prescribed  in  consequence. 

*'It  seems,  furthermore,  indubitable  that  if  a  woman  miss  this 


88  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

destiny,  or  have  renounced  it,  she  has  every  right,  before  God  and 
man,  to  take  up  whatever  honest  employment  she  can  find  open  to 
her  in  the  world.  Probably  there  are  several  or  many  employments 
now  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  men  for  which  women  might  be  more 
or  less  fit — printing,  tailoring,  weaving,  clerking,  etc.  That  medicine 
is  intrinsically  not  unfit  for  them  is  proved  from  the  fact  that  in  much 
more  sound  and  earnest  ages  than  ours,  before  the  medical  profession 
rose  into  being,  they  were  virtually  the  physicians  and  surgeons  as 
well  as  sick-nurses — all  that  the  world  had.  Their  form  of  intellect, 
their  sympathy,  their  wonderful  acuteness  of  observation,  etc.,  seem  to 
indicate  in  them  peculiar  qualities  for  dealing  with  disease ;  and  evi- 
dently in  certain  departments  (that  of  female  disease)  they  have  quite 
peculiar  opportunities  of  being  useful.  My  answer  to  your  question, 
then,  may  be  that  two  things  are  not  doubtful  to  me  in  this  matter. 

"1.  That  Women — any  woman  who  deliberately  so  determines — 
have  a  right  to  study  medicine ;  and  that  it  might  be  profitable  and 
serviceable  to  have  facilities,  or  at  least  possibilities,  ofilered  them  for 
so  doing.     But — 

''2.  That,  for  obvious  reasons,  Female  Students  of  Medicine  ought 
to  have,  if  possible.  Female  Teachers,  or  else  an  extremely  select 
kind  of  men,  and,  in  particular,  that  to  have  young  women  present 
among  young  men  in  anatomical  classes,  clinical  lectures,  or  general- 
ly studying  medicine  in  concert,  is  an  incongruity  of  the  first  magni- 
tude, and  shocking  to  think  of  to  every  pure  and  modest  mind. 

"This  is  all  I  have  to  say;  and  I  send  it  to  you,  under  the  con- 
dition above  mentioned,  as  a  friend  for  the  use  of  friends. 
"Yours  sincerely, 

*'T.  Caeltle." 

fThe  servant  who  burned  the  "French  Eevolution  " 
was  in  the  employ  of  Mrs.  Taylor,  afterwards  Mrs. 
i  Mill.  "  One  day,"  said  Carlyle,  in  relating  this  trag- 
ic edy,  "Mill  rushed  in,  and  sat  there,  white  as  a  sheet, 
I     and  for  a  time  was  a  picture  of  speechless  terror. 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  89 

At  last  it  came  out,  amid  his  gasps,  that  Mrs.  Taylor, 
to  whom  he  had  lent  the  manuscript  in  whose  prep- 
aration he  had  been  much  interested,  had  laid  it  on 
her  studj-table,  when  her  servant-girl  had  found  it 
convenient  for  lighting  the  fire ;  each  day  the  vol- 
ume must  have  been  decreasing,  until  one  day,  the 
lady  coming  in,  found  scattered  about  the  grate  the 
last  burnt  vestiges  of  the  most  difficult  piece  of 
work  I  had  yet  accomplished.  The  downright  ago- 
ny of  Mill  at  this  catastrophe  was  such  that  for  a 
time  it  required  all  our  energies  to  bring  him  any 
degre#of  consolation;  for  me  but  one  task  remain- 
ed in  that  matter :  the  volume  was  rewritten  as  w^ell 
as  I  could  do  it,  but  it  was  never  the  same  book." 

"  I  used  to  see  a  good  deal  of  Mill  once,  but  we 
have  silently  —  and  I  suppose  inevitably — parted 
company.  He  was  a  beautiful  person,  affectionate, 
lucid ;  he  had  always  the  habit  of  studying  out  the 
thing  that  interested  him,  and  could  tell  how  he 
came  by  his  thoughts  and  views.  But  for  many 
years  now  I  have  not  been  able  to  travel  with  him 
on  his  ways,  though  not  in  the  least  doubtful  of  his 
own  entire  honesty  therein.  His  work  on  *  Liberty ' 
appears  to  me  the  most  exhaustive  statement  of  pre- 
cisely that  I  feel  to  be  untrue  on  the  subject  treated. 
But,  alas !  the  same  discrepancy  has  become  now  a 
familiar  experience.  The  Irishman  is  now  about  the 
'  freest '  man  in  existence ;  he  is  at  liberty  to  sit  him 


90  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

down  on  his  dunghill  and  curse  all  creation;  *he 
clothes  himself  with  curses  as  with  a  garment ;'  yet 
what  good  does  he  or  anybody  else  get  by  it  all  ?" 

In  a  letter  written  in  1832  (see  Part  III.)  Carlyle 
speaks  of  Mill  as  "  one  of  the  best,  clearest-headed, 
and  clearest-hearted  young  men  now  living  in  Lon- 
don." 

John  Stuart  Mill  always  seemed  to  me  to  grow 
suddenly  aged  when  Carlyle  was  spoken  of.  The 
nearest  to  painful  emotion  in  him  which  I  ever  saw 
was  when  he  made  that  remark,  "  Carlyle  turned 
against  all  his  friends."  I  did  not  and  do  not  think 
the  remark  correct.  When  Carlyle  came  out  with 
his  reactionary  opinions,  as  they  were  deemed,  his 
friends  became  afraid  of  him,  and  nearly  all  stopped 
going  to  see  him  at  the  very  time  when  they  should 
have  insisted  on  coming  to  a  right  understanding. 
Carlyle  was  not  reserved  in  speaking  of  the  change 
which  had  come  over  his  convictions.  "I  used  to 
go  up  stairs  and  down  spouting  the  oratory  of  all 
radicals,  especially  the  negro  emancipationists.  Nor 
have  I  the  slightest  doubt  that  such  people  have 
sometimes  put  an  end  to  the  most  frightful  cruelties. 
What  worth  they  put  into  such  work  they  reaped. 
But  it  steadily  grew  into  my  mind  that  of  all  the  in- 
sanities that  ever  gained  foothold  in  human  minds, 
the  wildest  was  that  of  telling  masses  of  ignorant 
people  that  it  is  their  business  to  attend  to  the  reg- 


THOMAS  CARLYLE.  91 

ulation  of  human  society.  I  remember  when  Emer- 
son first  came  to  see  me  that  he  had  a  great  deal  to 
say  about  Plato  that  was  very  attractive,  and  I  began 
to  look  up  Plato;  but,  amid  the  endless  dialectical 
hair-splitting,  was  generally  compelled  to  shut  up  the 
book,  and  say,  *  How  does  all  this  concern  me  at  all  V 
But  later  on  I  have  read  Plato  with  much  pleasure, 
finding  him  an  elevated  soul,  spreading  a  pure  at- 
mosphere around  one  as  he  reads.  And  I  find  him 
there  pouring  his  scorn  on  the  Athenian  democracy 
— the  charming  government,  full  of  variety  and  dis- 
order, dispensing  equality  alike  to  equals  and  im- 
equals' — and  hating  that  set  quite  as  cordially  as 
the  writer  of  the  'Latter-Day  Pamphlets'  hates  the 
like  of  it  now ;  expressed  in  a  sunny,  genial  way, 
indeed,  instead  of  the  thunder  and  lightning  with 
which  the  pamphlet  man  was  forced  to  utter  it. 
Let  Cleon,  the  shoemaker,  make  good  shoes,  and  no 
man  will  honor  him  more  than  I.  Let  Cleon  go 
about  pretending  to  be  legislator,  conductor  of  the 
world,  and  the  best  thing  one  can  do  for  Cleon  is  to 
remand  him  to  his  work,  and,  were  it  possible,  under 
penalties.  And  I  demand  nothing  more  for  Cleon 
or  Cuffee  than  I  should  be  prepared  to  assert  con- 
cerning the  momentarily  successful  of  such  who  have 
managed  to  get  titles  and  high  places.  In  that  kind, 
for  example,  his  Imperial  Majesty  Napoleon  Third — 
an  intensified  Pig,  as,  indeed,  must  some  day  appear." 


y^  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

X. 

It  became  clear  to  my  own  mind,  after  a  few 
months'  acquaintance  with  Carljle,  that  he  had  in 
his  mind  a  very  palpable  Utopia,  one  neither  unlove- 
ly nor  unjust,  whose  principles,  if  genuinely  applied, 
would  make  ordinary  Conservatives  glad  enough  to 
accept  those  of  Mill  in  preference.  It  was  part  of 
his  view,  for  instance,  that  private  proprietorship  in 
land  should  be  abolished ;  and  I  well  remember  him 
building  a  long  discourse  on  English  "  fee,"  Scotch 
"  feu,"  as  derived  from  foi,  fides,  a  trust,  aifd  des- 
tined to  be  that  again  when  Cosmos  replaced  Chaos. 
The  paper -nobility  would  stand  small  chance  in 
his  Commonwealth.  It  was  they  mainly  who  usurp 
the  posts  of  highest  work,  for  which  they  are  in- 
competent, and  keep  the  true  kings,  the  Yoltaires, 
Burnses,  Johnsons,  in  the  exile  of  mere  "  talk."  But 
I  also  felt  that  it  was  by  a  rare  felicity  that  Marga- 
ret Fuller  spoke  of  him  as  "the  Siegfried  of  Eng- 
land— ^great  and  powerful,  if  not  quite  invulnerable." 
His  vulnerable  point  was  a  painful  longing  to  make 
present  facts  square  with  his  theory  and  ideal.  He 
could  not  bear  to  think  the  realization  of  his  hope  so 
distant  as  the  world  said.  He  had  lived  through  the 
generation  of  bread  riots.  Chartism,  Irish  rebellions, 
trade-union  strikes  and  rattenings,  and  longed  for  a 
fruitful  land,  with  bread  for  all,  work  for  all,  each 


THOMAS    CARLYLE.  93 

laborer  provided  for,  disciplined,  regulated — a  great 
army  of  honest  and  competent  toilers,  making  the 
earth  blossom  as  a  rose,  and  at  the  same  time  dwell- 
ing peacefully  in  patriarchally  governed  homes.  If 
this  could  only  be  realized  somewhere !  Then  there 
reached  him  the  tidings  that  in  the  Southern  States 
of  America  there  was  such  a  fair  country.  I  found 
him  fully  possessed  with  this  idea  in  1863.  In  his 
longing  that  his  dream  should  be  no  dream,  but  a 
reality,  he  had  listened  to  the  most  insubstantial  rep- 
resentations. An  enthusiastic  Southern  lady  had 
repeate'dly  visited  him,  and  found  easy  credence  to 
her  story  that  such  was  the  inherent  vitality  of 
slavery,  and  the  divine  force  attending  it,  that  even 
then,  when  the  South  was  blockaded,  and  harassed 
by  war  on  every  side,  prosperity  was  springing  up, 
and  factories  appearing.  Southern  theorists,  indeed, 
there  w^ere  as  sincerely  visionary  as  himself,  and  they 
came  to  him  personally  with  a  wonderful  scheme,  by 
w4iich  the  South  and  the  West  Indies  were  to  be  con- 
stituted into  one  great  nation,  in  which  the  physical 
beauty  of  the  country  would  only  be  surpassed  by 
the  songs  of  the  happy  negroes  working  in  their  own 
natural  clime,  untainted  by  any  of  the  mad,  wild 
strife  between  labor  and  capital,  the  greed  of  pelf,  or 
the  ambitions  of  corrupt  politics.  As  a  Southern 
myself,  I  had  another  story  to  tell.  A  dream  as  fair 
had  been  driven  from  my  own  heart  and  mind  when 


94  THOMAS    CARLYLE. 

I  was  able  to  look  beyond  the  peaceful  homes  of  one 
or  two  small  districts  in  my  beloved  Virginia  to  the 
actual  condition  of  the  average  South,  and  I  laid  be- 
fore him  the  facts  which  had  expelled  that  dream. 
One  or  two  of  the  simplest  facts  which  I  narrated, 
on  a  day  when  we  walked  in  Hyde  Park,  so  filled 
him  with  wrath  at  the  injustice  perpetrated  that  his 
denunciations  attracted  the  attention  of  loungers  in 
the  Park.  I  saw  before  me  the  same  man  that  after- 
wards so  deeply  sympathized  with  the  wronged  Af- 
rican Langahelele,  when  Bishop  Colenso  came  over 
from  JSTatal  to  plead  for  him  against  English  oppress- 
ors— the  man  whose  voice  has  helped  to  arrest  the 
schemes  to  obtain  English  aid  for  the  European 
slave-trader,  "  the  unspeakable  Turk." 

Carlyle  was  always  most  patient  when  he  was  vig- 
orously grappled  with  about  his  facts,  perhaps  from 
a  half-consciousness  that  there  lay  his  weakness,  and 
from  a  natural  honesty  of  mind.  Soon  after  David 
A.Wasson  had  written  to  him  that  stern  and  digni- 
fied paper  which  appeared  in  the  AtlantiG  Monthly^ 
he  asked  me  about  Wasson,  and  remarked  that  he 
seemed  to  be  "  an  honest,  sturdy,  and  valiant  kind  of 
man."  Subsequently  I  had  the  pleasure  of  introduc- 
ing to  him  the  friendly  but  severe  critic  in  question, 
and  he  was  very  genial  in  conversation  with  his 
American  critic. 

Carlyle  awakened  from  his  dream  of  a  beautiful 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE.  95 

patriarchal  society  in  the  Southern  States  slowly, 
but  he  did  awake.  One  day  he  received  from  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Furness,  of  Philadelphia,  as  a  reply  to  his 
"Ilias  in  Nuce"  (1863),  a  photograph  taken  of  the 
lacerated  back  of  a  negro,  with  the  words  "Look 
upon  this,  and  may  God  forgive  your  cruel  jest !" 
lie  asked  me  about  Dr.  Furness,  and  I  was  able  to 
give  him  an  account  which  relieved  him  from  the 
suspicion  that  the  picture  was  "  got  up  "  for  partisan 
purposes.  A  good  many  things  made  him,  as  I 
thought,  uneasy  about  his  position  in  those  days. 
But  the  staggering  blow,  dealt  with  all  the  force  of 
love,  came  from  Emerson.  It  was  early  in  October, 
1864,  that  I  found  him  reading  and  rereading  a  letter 
from  Emerson.  Long  years  before  he  had  written  to 
an  American,  "  I  hear  but  one  voice,  and  that  comes 
from  Concord:"  the  voice  had  now  come  to  him 
again,  freighted  with  tenderness,  but  also  with  terri- 
ble truth.  He  bade  me  read  the  letter.  It  spoke  of 
old  friendship,  conveyed  kindest  sympathies  to  Mrs. 
Carlyle — then  an  invalid — mentioned  pleasantly  a 
friend  whom  Carlyle  had  introduced,  and  spoke  of 
the  satisfaction  with  which  he  had  read  the  fourth 
volume  of  "Friedrich,"  especially  the  paramount 
fact  he  drew  from  it  that  many  years  had  not  yet 
broken  any  fibre  of  his  force;  "a  pure  joy  to  me 
who  abhor  the  inroads  which  time  makes  in  me  and 
my  friends.     To  live  too  long  is  the  capital  misfort- 


96  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

une."  Then  Emerson's  sentences  turned  to  fire — 
fire  in  which  love  was  quick  as  enthusiasm  was  burn- 
ing. He  said  he  had  lately  lamented  that  he  (Carlyle) 
had  not  visited  America.  It  would  have  made  it 
impossible  that  his  name  should  ever  be  cited  against 
the  side  of  humanity,  and  would  have  shown  him  the 
necessities  and  aspirations  struggling  up  in  the  free 
states,  though  but  unsteadily  articulated  there.  "  The 
battle  of  Humanity  is  at  this  hour  in  America."  He 
longed  to  enlist  him  with  his  thunderbolt  on  the 
right  side.  England  should  hold  America  stanch  to 
her  best  tendency.  Cannot  the  thoughtful  minds 
of  England  see  the  finger -pointings  of  the  gods 
which,  above  the  understanding,  feed  the  hopes  and 
guide  the  wills  of  men  ?  Generals  have  carried  to 
the  field  the  same  delusions  as  those  which  had  mis- 
led so  many  Englishmen,  until  corrected  by  expe- 
rience. Every  one  has  been  wrong  in  his  guess 
except  good  women  w^ho  never  despair  of  the  ideal 
right.  As  for  Carlyle  himself,  there  must  be  some 
mistake;  perhaps  he  was  experimenting  on  idlers, 
etc.  But  he  could  not  by  any  means  be  disguised 
from  those  eyes  that  saw  deep ;  they  knew  him  bet- 
ter than  he  knew  himself,  perhaps,  certainly  better 
than  others  knew  him ;  and  so  Carlyle  felt  when  he 
read  in  this  letter,  at  the  close,  "  Keep  the  old  kind- 
ness, which  I  prize  above  words." 

"No  danger  but  that  will  be  kept,"  said  Carlyle. 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  97 

"  For  the  rest,  this  letter,  the  first  I  have  received 
from  Emerson  this  long  time,  fills  me  with  astonish- 
ment. That  the  cleanest  mind  now  living — for  I 
don't  know  Emerson's  equal  on  earth  for  perception 
— should  write  so  is  quasi-miraculous.  I  have  tried 
to  look  into  the  middle  of  things  in  America,  and  I 
have  seen  a  people  cutting  throats  indefinitely  to 
put  the  negro  into  a  position  for  which  all  experience 
shows  him  unfit.  Two  Southerners  have  just  been 
here.  One  of  them,  I  should  say,  has  some  negro 
blood  in  him,  and  he  said,  quietly,  the  Southern- 
ers will  all  die  rather  than  submit  to  reunion  with 
the  North.  The  other,  a  Mr.  John  E.  Thompson, 
brought  me  an  autograph  letter  from  Stonewall 
Jackson." 

I  knew  Mr.  Thompson,  once  editor  of  the  Southern 
Literary  Messenger^  very  well,  and  said  that  there 
could  be  no  doubt  whatever  of  his  honor  and  sincer- 
ity. No  one  could  be  more  sensible  than  I  was  that 
there  were  in  the  South  many  excellent  people,  ear- 
nest and  even  religious  believers  in  the  system  of 
slavery.  It  had  been  the  heaviest  tragedy  of  my 
personal  life  when  I  came  to  feel  and  know  that  so 
much  heart  and  sincerity  as  that  amid  which  I  grew 
up  in  Virginia  were  pitted  against  all  the  necessary 
and  irresistible  currents  and  forces  of  the  universe. 
My  Virginian  relatives  and  friends,  or  most  of  them, 
failed  to  get  that  point  of  view  from  outside  which 


yo  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

residence  in  free  states  had  opened  to  me  with  per- 
sonally sorrowful  results,  and  they  could  not  see  that 
the  movement  for  emancipation  in  the  United  States 
was  fed  from  world-wide  sources.  They  thought 
me  a  traitor  to  them,  I  feared,  though  I  would  die 
to  do  them  any  service.  They  regarded  the  aboli- 
tionists as  wicked,  self-seeking  men,  and  they  were 
certainly  therein  proceeding  against  the  fact  and  the 
truth.  "Was  Emerson  a  wicked,  self-seeking  man  ?  I 
had  known  Emerson — refined,  retiring,  loving  soli- 
tude, hating  mobs — I  have  known  him  for  this  cause 
face  a  wild  mob ;  and  it  was  along  with  Garrison, 
Wendell  Phillips,  and  others  who  had  thrown  away 
all  self-interest  and  all  popularity,  to  plead  for  jus- 
tice to  the  race  most  powerless  to  repay  them. 

Carlyle  said,  after  a  long  pause,  and  in  the  gentlest 
voice:  "All  the  worth  they  or  you  have  put  into 
this  thing  will  return  to  you.  You  must  be  patient 
with  me  when  I  say  how  it  all  appears  to  me.  I 
cannot  help  admiring  the  E'orthern  people  for  their 
determination  to  maintain  their  Union.  There  is 
Abraham  Lincoln  "  (taking  up  a  photograph  I  had 
brought) ;  "  plainly  a  brave,  sincere  kind  of  man, 
who  seemed  to  me  crying  to  the  country, '  Come  on !' 
without  in  the  least  knowing  where  he  was  leading 
them,  or  even  wdth  quiet  doubts  whether  he  might 
not  be  leading  them  to  a  struggle  against  the  laws 
of   this  universe.      The    Americans   will  probably 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  99 

never  believe  it,  but  no  man  feels  more  profoundly 
interested  and  concerned  for  all  he  believes  really 
for  their  good  than  the  man  who  now  speaks  to  you." 
On  another  occasion  he  said :  ''  Notwithstanding  all 
the  irritation  which  the  Americans  feel  towards 
England,  America  owes  a  great  deal  to  England ;  a 
vast  deal  of  English  courage,  wealth,  literature,  have 
gone  to  give  America  her  start  in  the  world ;  and  I 
have  always  believed  it  would  be  paid  back,  with 
compound  interest,  in  the  steady  working  out  to 
demonstration  of  the  utter  and  eternal  impossibility 
of  what  Europe  is  pursuing  under  the  name  of  De- 
mocracy. The  Americans  are  powerful,  but  they 
cannot  make  two  men  equal  when  the  universe  has 
determined  that  they  are  and  shall  be  unequal. 
They  may  pursue  that  road,  and  believe  they  are  on 
the  way  to  e/^-rusalem,  but  they  shall  find  it  6''^-hen- 
na  that  is  finally  arrived  at.  ]^or  can  I  doubt  that 
an  increasing  number  of  men  in  America  perceive 
this  just  as  clearly  as  I  do,  whatever  they  may  think 
of  negro  slavery.  Many  an  intelligent  American 
has  told  me  in  this  room  w^hat  evils  their  country 
has  suffered  from  a  vast  mass  of  crass  ignorant  suf- 
frage; and  I  have  even  come  to  envy  America  her 
advantage  over  England,  inasmuch  as  her  democratic 
smash-up  bids  fair  to  precede  ours,  with  little  chance 
of  preventing  it.  I  believe  it  even  probable  that  the 
rule  of  men  competent  to  rule — as  against  both  sham 


100  THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 

nobility  and  the  ignorant  populace — will  be  first  es- 
tablished in  the  United  States." 

He  was  talking  in  this  way  once  when  an  eminent 
American  clergyman  was  present,  and  the  latter  be- 
gan to  defend  with  energy  the  right  of  every  man 
to  an  equal  vote.  "  Well,"  said  Carlyle,  "  I  do  not 
believe  that  state  can  last  in  which  Jesus  and  Judas 
have  equal  weight  in  public  affairs." 

One  evening  I  was  trying  to  harmonize  the  posi- 
tive and  negative  poles,  i.  e.,  to  make  him  admit  the 
merit  of  certain  passages  in  Walt  Whitman.  "  Ah," 
he  said,  "  I  cannot  like  him.  It  all  seems  to  be, '  I'm 
a  big  man  because  I  live  in  such  a  big  country.'  But 
I  have  heard  of  great  men  living  in  very  small  cor- 
ners of  the  earth.  America  will,  perhaps,  become 
a  great  as  well  as  a  big  country;  but  it  will  have 
to  learn  from  the  experience  and  age  of  tlie  world. 
The  authorities  of  the  world  have  always  been  the 
aged — the  Senior,  Senator,  Sire ;  I  am  told  the  In- 
dian Sachem  means  the  same.  'Younor  America' 
must  consider  that." 

Carlyle  was  born  among  peasants,  and  knew  too 
much  of  them,  their  ignorance  and  superstition,  to 
believe  that  their  suffrage  could  be  trusted  in  govern- 
ment; at  the  same  time,  he  had  observed  too  much 
the  nobility  and  gentry  to  believe  that  theirs  was 
more  trustworthy.  The  intellectual  world  was  just 
entering  on  its  phase  of  transcendentalism,  which 


THOMAS    CAELYLE.  101 

emphasized  the  idea  of  individual  "missions:"  men 
were,  greatest  and  smallest,  "  God-sent,"  their  tasks 
organic.  Eulers  were,  like  poets,  born — could  not 
be  made.  The  prophetic  vision  which  Carlyle  had 
caught,  amid  intervals  of  pulpit  -  dulness,  in  Eccle- 
f  echan  kirk,  when  Christ  should  be  on  the  throne  and 
Satan  chained  in  the  pit,  survived  in  his  mature  con- 
ception of  the  future.  Against  a  democracy  which 
would  give  Jesus  and  Judas  equal  votes,  he  set  an 
order  which  would  place  the  best  man  on  the  throne, 
and  bind  down  the  worst.  To  do  that,  he  often  said, 
was  the  only  meaning  of  progress.  "  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau,  after  she  had  come  from  America,  used  to 
talk  about  '  progress '  to  tediousness.  It's  doubtful 
whether  there  is  any  such  thing  in  the  sense  ordi- 
narily meant.  Before  one  rejoices  in  the  expansion 
and  progress  of  a  thing,  it  might  be  well  to  inquire 
whether  it  is  a  good  thing,  or  the  reverse,  which  is 
60  flourishing." 

It  is  notable  that  the  heroes  marked  out  for  hom- 
age by  Carlyle  were  chiefly  from  the  humble  rank 
from  which  he  had  himself  sprung — Luther,  Burns, 
Johnson,  Heyne,  Kichter,  Schiller,  and  others.  Such 
was  this  great  anti-democrat's  tribute  to  the  common 
people,  and  even  the  poorest.  It  could  only  have 
been  owing  to  the  unhappy  causes  already  intimated 
that  he  did  not  add  to  the  list  of  those  lowly-born  he- 
roes the  man  who,  of  all  his  contemporaries,  perhaps 
had  the  best  right  to  be  there — Abraham  Lincoln. 


102  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

XL 

When  the  poet  Longfellow  called  at  Chelsea  with 
an  introduction  from  Emerson,  Carljle  told  him  that 
Emerson's  coming  to  him  at  Craigenputtoch  was 
"  like  the  visit  of  an  angel."  Emerson's  letter  now 
came,  after  a  generation  had  passed,  as  the  voice  of 
Carlyle's  good  angel.  Never  again,  after  that  letter 
(of  October,  1864),  did  I  hear  Carlyle  speak  with  his 
former  confidence  concerning  the  issue  in  America. 
As  time  went  on,  I  could  perceive  an  increase  of 
attentiveness  in  his  manner  towards  Americans,  and 
he  seemed  to  be  touched  by  the  evidence  that  their 
faith  in  him  and  love  for  him  were  in  nowise  shaken 
by  anything  he  had  said  or  written — not  even  by 
his  "Ilias  in  Nuce."  Among  the  Americans  who 
visited  him  in  the  latter  years  of  his  life  were  George 
Eipley,  Samuel  Longfellow,  David  Wasson,  Went- 
worth  Iligginson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Forbes,  and  Profess- 
or Charles  Norton.  Concerning  each  of  these  and 
others  I  have  heard  him  speak  in  a  tone  which  indi- 
cated a  quiet  revolution  going  on  in  his  mind.  It 
was  a  rare  thing  at  these  interviews  to  hear  any  dis- 
cussion of  the  questions  raised  in  Emerson's  letter, 
though  Carlyle  generally  "bore  his  testimony" 
against  democracy.  But  his  esteem  for  America  and 
Americans  steadily  grew,  and  his  eyes  seemed  again 
turning  with  hope  to  the  West,  as  in  his  youth  when 
he  thought  of  going  to  dwell  there. 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  103 

Never  can  I  forget  the  conversation  between  Car- 
Ijle  and  Bayard  Taylor,  when  the  latter  visited  Lon- 
don on  his  way  to  take  his  place  as  minister  at  Ber- 
lin. Several  years  before,  Bayard  had  called  upon 
Carlyle,  and  audaciously  announced  that  he  meant  to 
write  the  Life  of  Goethe.  The  old  man  could  not 
allow  any  such  liberties  to  be  taken  with  his  literary 
hero  without  a  challenge,  and  set  a  sort  of  trap  for 
this  ambitious  American.  "  But,"  said  he,  "  are  there 
not  already  Lives  of  Goethe  ?  There  is  Blank's  Life 
of  Goethe :  what  fault  have  you  to  find  w^ith  that  ?" 
The  tone  was  that  Blank  had  exhausted  the  subject. 
Bayard  immediately  began  showing  the  inadequacy 
and  errors  of  Blank's  book,  and  withal  his  own  mi- 
nute and  critical  knowledge  of  Goethe,  when  Carlyle 
broke  out  with  a  laugh,  saying  of  the  Life  he  had 
mentioned, "  I  couldn't  read  it  through."  From  that 
moment  he  was  cordial,  and  recognized  the  man  be- 
fore him.  And  now  when  Bayard  was  once  again 
here,  and  the  opportunity  to  achieve  the  great  work 
he  had  undertaken  seemed  to  be  within  reach,  he 
called  upon  Carlyle  again.  We  found  Carlyle  in  the 
early  afternoon  alone,  and  reading.  He  presently 
remembered  the  previous  call  which  the  young  au- 
thor had  made  upon  him,  and  congratulated  him  that 
he  belonged  to  a  country  which  preferred  to  be  rep- 
resented abroad  by  scholars  and  thinkers  rather  than 
by  professional  diplomatists.     lie  at  once  inquired 


104  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

how  he  was  getting  on  with  his  Life  of  Goethe,  re- 
marking that  such  a  work  was  needed.  Bayard  told 
him  of  a  number  of  new  documents  of  importance 
which  the  Germans  had  intrusted  to  him.  The  two 
at  once  entered  upon  an  interesting  consultation  con- 
cerning the  knotty  points  in  Goethe's  history.  He 
referred  to  Bayard's  translation  of  "  Faust ;"  with  a 
good-natured  smile,  he  said,  "  Yours  is  the  twentieth 
version  of  that  book  which  their  authors  have  been 
kind  enough  to  place  on  my  shelves.  You  have 
grappled,  I  see,  with  the  second  part.  My  belief 
increasingly  has  been  tliat  when  Goethe  had  got 
through  with  his  ^  Faust '  he  found  himself  in  pos- 
session of  a  vast  quantity  of  classical  and  mediaeval 
lore,  demonology  and  what  not;  it  was  what  he 
somewhere  called  his  Walpurgis  Sack,  which  he 
might  some  day  empty ;  and  it  all  got  emptied,  in 
his  artistic  way,  in  Part  II.  Such  is  my  present 
impression."  At  length  Carlyle's  brougham  was  an- 
nounced, and  he  must  take  his  customary  drive ;  but 
he  was  evidently  sorry  to  give  np  this  interview. 
He  entered  upon  an  impressive  monologue  about 
Goethe,  which  ended  with  a  repetition  of  the  first 
verses  of  the  Freemason's  Song.  His  voice  trembled 
a  little  when  he  came  to  the  lines — 

*' Stars  silent  rest  o'er  ns; 
Graves  under  us  silent." 

"  No  voice  from  either  of  those  directions !"  he  said, 


THOMAS    CAELYLE.  105 

with  a  sigh.  Then  Bayard  took  up  the  strain,  and 
in  warm,  earnest  tones  repeated  the  remaining  verses 
in  his  perfect  German.  Carljle  was  profoundly 
moved.  He  grasped  Taylor's  hand,  and  said,  "  Shall 
I  see  you  again  ?"  The  other  answered  that  he  must 
immediately  leave  England,  but  hoped  to  return  be- 
fore long.  Carlyle  passed  down  to  his  carriage,  but 
just  as  he  was  about  driving  off  made  the  driver 
halt,  and  signalled  to  us  to  come  near.  He  said  to 
Bayard,  "  I  hope  you  will  do  your  best  at  Berlin  to 
save  us  from  further  war  in  Europe ;"  and  then, 
after  a  moment's  silence,  "  Let  us  shake  hands  once 
more ;  we  are  not  likely  to  meet  again.  I  wish  you 
all  success  and  happiness." 

!N^o  man  was  more  free  from  personal  pride  than 
Carlyle,  or  more  ready  to  confess  his  error  when  it 
was  proven  such.  In  early  days  he  had  retracted 
his  sarcasms  upon  Sir  Robert  Peel,  when  he  found 
that  statesman  possessed  of  the  courage  to  turn 
against  his  own  party  in  order  to  redress  a  great 
wTong  suffered  by  the  people.  He  had  said  sharp 
things  of  Palmerston  too,  but  when  that  Premier 
died  I  remember  his  words — "  Good-bye,  old  friend ; 
I  shall  perhaps  live,  at  any  rate  England  will  live, 
long  enough  to  see  many  uglier  men  occupying  your 
place!"  He  confessed  that  he  had  been  mistaken 
about  Frederick  the  Great.  The  freethinking  mon- 
arch, and  friend  of  Yoltaire,  had  loomed  up  before 

5* 


106  THOMAS    CARLYLE. 

him  as  a  hero;  but  as  that  biography,  which  has 
given  to  the  world  such  a  grand  chapter  of  history, 
proceeded,  Frederick  was  found  to  be  no  worshipful 
man ;  and  he  said  to  Yarnhagen  von  Ense  that  he 
had  no  satisfaction  in  writing  the  book — "  only  la- 
bor and  sorrow.  What  the  devil  had  I  to  do  with 
your  Friedrich  f  It  is  my  belief  that  it  was  mainly 
through  his  absorption  in  that  heavy  task  that  Car- 
lyle  was  so  easily  misled  about  the  struggle  in 
America.  But  this  mistake  he  also  discovered  and 
confessed.  An  American  lady,  Mrs.  Charles  Lowell, 
w^hose  noble  son  was  one  of  those  Harvard  youths 
that  fell  in  the  war,  sent  Carlyle  the  Harvard  Me- 
morial volume.  The  old  man  perused  this  volume 
w^ith  close  attention,  and  became  aware  that  there 
had  been  in  the  Northern  soldiers  a  spirit  and  pur- 
pose which  he  had  failed  to  recognize.  When,  at 
length,  Mrs.  Lowell  personally  came  to  see  him,  he 
said,  as  he  took  her  hand,  and  even  with  tears,  "  I 
doubt  I  have  been  mistaken." 

Those  w^ho  have  regarded  Carlyle  as  a  mere  wor- 
shipper of  force  have  formed  a  superficial  judgment. 
What  Carlyle  really  worshipped  was  work ;  his  motto 
to  the  last  was  Ldborare  est  orare ;  and  his  idea  of 
work  was  a  spiritual  force  turning  some  bit  of  chaos 
into  order.  In  the  hard  hand  of  toil  he  saw  a  sceptre 
nobler  than  that  of  many  a  monarch  organizing  dis- 
order.    He  who  could  denounce  ^Napoleon  III.  when 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  107 

the  most  powerful  emperor  in  Europe,  defended 
Mazzini  while  he  was  the  most  helpless  exile  in  Eu- 
rope. He  who  defended  Governor  Eyre  in  the  belief 
that  he  had  saved  Jamaica  from  wholesale  massacre 
was  equally  resolute  in  his  sympathy  with  the  Zulus 
when  he  saw  them  assailed  by  English  troops.  He 
never  took  the  side  of  mere  success.  He  had  no 
sympathy  with  imperialism.  One  of  his  latest  pub- 
lic acts  was  to  protest  against  the  proposition  to 
raise,  in  Westminster  Abbey,  a  memorial  to  Prince 
Louis  K^apoleon,  slain  by  the  Zulus.  While  lie  has 
been  popularly  credited  with  admiration  for  military 
leaders,  England  has  not  begun  a  war,  from  the  Cri- 
mean to  the  Afghan,  in  which  he  was  not  opposed  to 
his  own  country. 

No  man  was  a  stronger  hater  of  tyranny.  He  re- 
joiced in  the  American  Ee volution, .and  also  in  the 
story  of  the  Dutch  as  related  by  Motley — a  histo- 
rian of  whose  works  he  spoke  very  warmly  indeed. 
"Those  Dutch  are  a  strong  people.  They  raised 
their  land  out  of  a  marsh,  and  went  on  for  a  long 
period  of  time  breeding  cows  and  making  cheese, 
and  might  have  gone  on  with  their  cows  and  cheese 
till  doomsday.  But  Spain  comes  over  and  says, '  We 
want  you  to  believe  in  St.  Ignatius.'  *  Yery  sorry,' 
replied  the  Dutch,  '  but  we  can't.'  ^  God  !  but  you 
must,''  says  Spain ;  and  they  went  about  with  guns 
and  swords  to  make  the  Dutch  believe  in  St.  Igna- 


108  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

tius — never  made  tliem  believe  in  liirn,  but  did  suc- 
ceed in  breaking  their  own  vertebral  column  for- 
ever, and  raising  the  Dutch  into  a  great  nation." 
Louis  I^apoleon  was  simply  a  "swindler  who  found 
a  people  ready  to  be  swindled."  I  thought  he  looked 
with  favor  upon  the  new  French  Republic,  but  feared 
that  the  people  of  that  country  were  of  a  kind  to 
forget  the  terrible  experience  they  had  with  the  man 
of  Sedan.  "  They  are  liable  to  fits  of  depression  in 
which  they  seem  driven  to  madness.  Just  now  they 
are  in  their  other  mood  of  exaltation,  and  the  fine 
qualities  they  possess  shine  out.  But  it  is  a  danger- 
ous experiment  to  suddenly  break  the  chains  of  an 
ignorant  population." 

Speaking  of  the  "  mere  worship  of  force,"  which 
had  been  attributed  to  him,  he  said :  "  Most  of  that 
which  people  call  force  is  but  the  phantasm  of  it, 
not  reverend  in  the  slightest  degree  to  any  sane 
mind.  Here  is  some  small  unnoted  thing  silently 
working,  or  for  the  most  part  invisibly,  in  whicli 
lies  the  real  force.  Plenty  of  noise  and  show  of 
power  around  us.  Men  in  the  pulpits,  platforms, 
street  corners,  crying  (as  I  hear  it),  *  Ho !  all  ye  that 
wish  to  be  convinced  of  the  thing  that  is  not  true, 
come  hither ;'  but  the  quietly  true  thing  prevails  at 
last.  I  admire  Phocion  there  among  those  highly 
oratorical  Athenians.  Demosthenes  says  to  him, 
'  The  Athenians  will  get  mad,  and  kill  you  some 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  109 

day.'  *  Yes,'  says  Phocion — *  me  when  they  are  mad, 
you  when  they  are  in  their  senses.'  They  sent  Pho- 
cion to  look  after  Philip,  who  was  coming  against 
them.  Phocion  returned  and  told  them  they  could 
do  nothing  against  Philip,  and  had  better  make  peace 
with  him.  All  the  tongues  began  to  wag  and  abuse 
him.  Phocion  quietly  broke  his  staff,  and  cast  the 
pieces  to  them.  Let  me  be  out  of  it  altogether! 
Demosthenes  and  the  orators  had  it  their  own  way, 
and  the  Athenians  were  defeated.  They  then  had 
to  go  to  Phocion  to  get  them  out  of  the  trouble  as 
well  as  he  could.  I  think  of  all  this  when  they  tell 
me  Mr.  So-and-so  has  made  a  tremendous  speech.  If 
I  had  my  way  with  that  eloquent  man,  I  should  say 
to  him,  *Have  you  yourself  done,  or  tried  to  do,  any 
of  these  fine  things  you  talk  about  V  '  Done  V  he 
would  most  likely  have  to  say;  ^ quite  the  reverse. 
The  more  I  say  them,  the  less  need  have  I  to  do 
them.'  Tlien  I  would  just  snip  a  little  piece  of  that 
eloquent  tongue  off.  And  the  next  time  he  made  an 
eloquent  speech,  I  would  put  to  him  the  same  ques- 
tion, and  when  the  like  reply  came,  I  would  snip  an- 
other small  piece  of  his  tongue  off.  And  in  the  end 
very  little,  most  likely  nothing  at  all,  of  that  eloquent 
tongue  would  be  left.  If  he  could  not  then  act,  at 
least  my  fine  orator  could  be  silent.  The  strongest 
force  in  Europe  just  now — Bismarck — is  the  silent- 
est.    He  completes  the  slow  work  of  seven  hundred 


110  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

years,  but  neither  with  tongue  nor  pen.  Not  the  least 
service  he  is  doing  Europe,  could  the  people  give 
right  heed  to  it,  might  be  regarded  his  demonstra- 
tion that  most  of  the  ruling  men  esteemed  as  power- 
ful are  only  wind-bags.  The  utmost  strain  of  their 
power  seems  to  be  to  keep  themselves  one  day  more 
in  their  pleasurable  places;  that  exhausts  them. 
Mere  egoism,  and  that  of  the  paltry  kind.  It  might 
be  an  adequate  provision  for  such  should  a  fit  num- 
ber of  flunkeys  be  employed,  as  in  the  case  of  a  high 
personage  Yoltaire  tells  about,  to  go  every  morning 
and  bow  to  them,  and  say.  How  very  great  and  no- 
ble your  Excellency  is!  How  much  reason  your 
Excellency  has  to  be  satisfied  w^ith  Himself!" 

I  should  remark  that  this  was  said  long  before 
Prince  Bismarck  was  suspected  of  conniving  with 
Catholic  reactionists.  (He  used  to  remember  that  the 
German  Chancellor's  name  etymologically  meant  the 
"  Bishop's  limit.")  Since  then  I  never  heard  Carlyle 
mention  him.  Carlyle  might  scold  the  Socialists,  but 
his  hatred  was  reserved  for  Jesuitism — which,  how- 
ever, did  not  mean,  on  his  lips,  simply  a  papal  Order, 
but  always  that  false  Spirit  arraigned  in  his  "  Latter- 
day  Pamphlets."  On  an  occasion  when  some  one  was 
denouncing  Jesuitism,  I  remember  his  scrutinizing 
the  speaker  rather  severely,  and  asking  him  "  where- 
abouts he  could  lay  his  hand  upon  anything  free 
from  Jesuitism  in  what  is  called  religion  nowadays?'* 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  Ill 

XII. 

Carlyle  has  suffered  mucli  from  having  his  humor- 
ous exaggerations  taken,  as  one  might  say,  underfoot 
of  the  letter.  If  the  parties  of  progress  have  been 
misled  by  this  kind  of  interpretation,  still  more  have 
those  been  mistaken  who  have  inferred  from  his 
anti-democratic  utterances  a  disposition  to  court  the 
aristocracy.  When,  in  the  latter  years  of  his  life, 
some  of  high  rank,  who  had  forgotten,  or  had  never 
read,  what  he  used  to  write  about  "  paper-nobility," 
began  to  make  much  of  Carlyle,  his  tone  occasion- 
ally showed  that  he  remembered  another  story  of  his 
favorite  Phocion,  how  when  the  Athenian  Assem- 
bly applauded,  he  turned  to  his  friends  and  asked 
"  what  bad  thing  he  had  let  slip."  When  the  Em- 
peror of  Germany  sent  him  the  Order  for  Civil  Merit 
(founded  by  Frederick  the  Great),  he  did  not  refuse 
it,  though  he  did  not  care  for,  and,  I  believe,  never 
acknowledged  it ;  but,  as  the  world  knows,  he  would 
not  accept  the  patronage  at  home,  which  might  im- 
ply an  admission  that  honest  thought  is  to  be  paid  in 
royal  decorations.  He  had  not  worked  for  such  wage, 
and  would  not  receive  it.  When,  about  the  time  in 
w^iich  the  German  honor  to  the  biographer  of  Fred- 
erick came,  Queen  Victoria  sought  an  interview  with 
him,  he  met  her  at  the  residence  of  the  Dean  of 
Westminster,  and  her  Majesty  became  aware  that 


112  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

she  was  in  the  presence  of  a  man  beyond  all  fictions 
of  etiquette  when  he  said,  "  Your  Majesty  sees  that  I 
am  an  old  man,  and,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  be  seat- 
ed, I  may  perhaps  be  better  able  to  converse."  The 
Queen  bowed  assent,  but  she  had  never  before  con- 
versed with  one  of  her  subjects  on  such  terms  of 
equality.  This  interview  took  place  March  4, 1869. 
There  were  present  the  Duchess-Dowager  of  Athole 
(in  waiting  on  the  Queen);  the  Princess  Louise,  "de- 
cidedly a  very  pretty  young  lady,  and  clever  too ;" 
Sir  Charles  and  Lady  Lyell ;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Grote ; 
and  Eobert  Browning;  besides  the  Dean  and  Lady 
Augusta  Stanley.  Carlyle  entertained  the  Queen 
with  a  graphic  account  of  the  antiquarian  and  mod- 
ern associations  of  the  region  where  he  was  born, 
concerning  which  she  inquired,  and  of  Carlisle  ("  Caer 
Lewel,  about  the  same  age  as  Solomon  ") ;  also  with 
much  pleasant  talk  of  Berlin  and  Potsdam.  He  told 
Majesty  about  his  grandfather's  ride  in  old  times  to 
Glasgow,  when  a  man  worth  ten  thousand  pounds 
was  considered  a  Croesus,  when  the  people  sang 
psalms  and  the  streets  were  silent  at  9.30  P.M. — 
"hard,  sound,  presbyterian  root  of  what  has  now 
shot  up  into  a  hemlock-tree,"  to  which  Majesty  re- 
sponded with  a  soft,  low  -  voiced  politeness  which 
pleased  Carlyle  well.  He  went  to  the  interview  by 
the  underground  railway,  and  by  the  same  convey- 
ance "  was  home  before  seven,  and  out  of  the  adven- 
ture with  no  more  than  a  headache." 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  113 

When  the  decoration  of  the  Grand  Cross  of  Bath 
was  offered  and  declined,  the  throne,  the  ministry, 
and  the  people  heard  once  more  from  the  vicinity 
of  Ayr  the  brave  song : 

"A  prince  can  mak  a  belted  knight, 

A  marquis,  duke,  and  a'  that ; 
But  an  honest  man's  aboon  his  might — 

Guid  faith  he  maunna  fa'  that! 
For  a'  that,  and  a'  that, 

Tlieir  dignities,  and  a'  that, 
The  pith  o'  sense,  and  pride  o'  worth, 

Are  higher  ranks  than  a'  that." 

Carlyle  was  sensible  of  a  certain  magnanimity  in 
Disraeli's  proffer  of  this  honor,  for  he  had  written 
some  severe  things  about  the  Prime-minister.  The 
two  men  had  never  been  introduced  to  each  other. 
Disraeli  perhaps  thought  that  Carlyle  remembered 
an  early  satire  he  had  written  upon  him,  which  was 
not  the  case,  Carlyle  being  always  utterly  free  from 
personal  resentments  of  that  kind.  Their  point  of 
nearest  contact  was  when  they  were  sitting  together 
upon  the  late  Lord  Derby's  commission  of  the  Na- 
tional Portrait  Gallery.  On  that  occasion  the  por- 
trait of  Lord  Brougham  (he  still  living)  was  offered, 
and  though  all  present  felt  that  the  acceptance  of  it 
would  be  a  bad  precedent — since  politicians  might 
utilize  the  gallery  to  advance  their  fame — yet  all 
hesitated  to  oppose  the  offer  save  one.     Carlyle  rose 


114  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

lip  and  said  that,  "  since  the  rest  hesitated,  he  begged 
leave  to  move  that  the  Brougham  picture  be  for  the 
present  rejected."  The  motion  was  adopted ;  and 
Disraeli  left  his  seat,  went  round  to  where  Carlj-Ie 
was,  and  stood  before  him  for  a  few  moments,  utter- 
ing no  word,  but  fairly  beaming  upon  the  only  man 
who  had  the  courage  to  do  that  which  all  felt  to  be 
right. 

Disraeli's  letter  to  Carlyle  was  not  merely  munifi- 
cent— offering  not  only  the  order,  but  also  what  sum 
of  money  might  be  desired  to  support  it  —  but  it 
was  expressed  with  the  finest  taste  and  feeling.  The 
order  was  fixed  on  because  it  had  been  kept  more 
pure  than  others ;  and  "  since  you,  like  myself,  are 
childless,"  wrote  the  Premier,  the  common  baronetcy 
seemed  less  appropriate.  Carlyle  wrote  an  equally 
courteous  and  noble  reply  in  declining.  Carlyle  in- 
troduced Emerson  to  the  English  public  as  the  sin- 
gular American  "who  did  not  want  to  be  Presi- 
dent," and  he  must  now  himself  be  recorded  as  the 
eccentric  Briton  who  did  not  want  to  be  decorated. 
One  honor  Carlyle  did  value — the  naming  of  a  green 
space  in  Chelsea  "  Carlyle  Square." 

On  Saturday,  December  4, 1875,  when  Carlyle  com- 
pleted his  eightieth  year,  a  number  of  his  friends 
and  others  variously  representing  literature  united  in 
au  address  to  him  as  follows : 


THOMAS  CAELYLE.  115 


TO  THOMAS  CAELYLE. 

''Dec.  4,  1875. 

"Sir, — We  beg  leave,  on  this  interesting  and  memorable  anniver- 
sary, to  tender  you  the  expression  of  our  most  respectful  good  wishes. 

*'Not  a  few  of  the  voices  which  would  have  been  dearest  to  you  to 
hear  to-day  are  silent  in  death.  There  may  perhaps  be  some  com- 
pensation in  the  assurance  of  the  reverent  sympathy  and  afiFectionate 
gratitude  of  many  thousands  of  living  men  and  women  throughout 
the  British  Islands  and  elsewhere,  who  have  derived  delight  and  in- 
spiration from  the  noble  series  of  your  writings,  and  who  have  noted 
also  how  powerfully  the  world  has  been  influenced  by  your  great  per- 
sonal example.  A  whole  generation  has  elapsed  since  you  described 
for  us  the  hero  as  a  man  of  letters.  We  congratulate  you  and  our- 
selves on  the  spacious  fulness  of  years  which  has  enabled  you  to  sus- 
tain this  rare  dignity  among  mankind  in  all  its  possible  splendor  and 
completeness.  It  is  a  matt  er  for  general  rejoicing  that  a  teacher  whoso 
genius  and  achievements  have  lent  radiance  to  his  time  still  dwells 
amidst  us;  and  our  hope  is  that  you  may  yet  long  continue  in  fair 
health,  to  feel  how  much  you  are  loved  and  honored,  and  to  rest  in  the 
retrospect  of  a  brave  and  illustrious  life. 

*'We  request  .you  to  do  us  the  honor  to  accept  the  accompanying 
copy  of  a  medal  designed  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Boehm,  which  has  been  struck 
in  commemoration  of  the  day." 

The  medal  bears  on  one  of  its  faces  a  medallion  of 
Mr.  Carlyle,  by  Mr.  Boehm,  and  on  the  obverse  the 
words — "  In  Commemoration.  Dec.  4,  1875."  Sil- 
ver and  bronze  copies  were  struck  for  the  use  of  the 
subscribers,  with  a  few  for  presentation  to  public  in- 
stitutions. The  copy  Mr.  Carlyle  was  requested  to 
accept  was  in  gold. 


116  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

The  inhabitants  of  Chelsea  had  for  many  years 
become  familiar  with  Carlyle's  unique  figure,  as  he 
took  his  daily  and  nightly  walks ;  and  when  one  of 
his  friends,  under  a  mistake,  publicly  stated  that  he 
(Carlyle)  had  been  treated  with  disrespect  by  the 
younger  plebs  around  him,  the  author  as  publicly  de- 
clared the  reverse  to  be  true.  The  only  case  of  this 
kind  which  I  ever  heard  of  was  one  in  which  some 
fine  ladies  were  the  offenders.  lie  stumbled  and 
nearly  fell  over  some  obstruction  in  the  street.  The 
ladies,  who  happened  to  be  passing,  laughed.  Car- 
lyle, removing  his  hat,  bowed  low  to  them,  and  went 
on  his  way. 

XIIL 

Carlyle  never  thoroughly  enjoyed  Art.  Had  that 
side  of  him  not  been  repressed  in  early  life,  his  last 
years  had  been  happier.  He  had,  indeed,  on  his 
walls  some  valuable  pictures,  but  they  were  por- 
traits, or  pictures  which  had  got  there  for  some 
other  reason  than  that  they  were  works  of  art.  I 
have  never  doubted  that  he  quietly  included  the  fine 
arts  in  the  ban  he  placed  upon  rhymed  poetry,  and 
that  his  early  bias  against  all  such  things  was  pre- 
cisely reported  in  Sterling's  portrait  of  him  in  "  The 
Onyx  Ring."  "  You,"  says  Collins  to  Walsingham, 
"  you  for  whose  pipings  and  madrigals  the  world  has 
smooth  and  favorable  ears,  had  you  the  heart  of  a 
man,  instead  of  the  fancy  of  a  conjurer,  might  find 


THOMAS   CAELTLE.  117 

or  make  the  sad  hour  for  speaking  severe  truths. 
You  raight  inspirit  and  shame  men  into  the  work  of 
painfully  building  up  new  and  graver  and  serener 
hopes,  instead  of  lulling  them  into  a  drunken  dream 
with  wanton  airs  and  music."  Walsingham  replies, 
"  One  builds  cyclopean  walls ;  another  fashions  mar- 
ble carvings.  Each  must  work  as  he  can.  But  re- 
member that  the  cyclopean  walls,  though  they  stood 
indeed,  and  stand,  became  useless  monuments  of  a 
dead  past ;  and  the  fox  and  the  robber  kennel  among 
the  stones.  The  marble  carvings,  which  humanized 
their  own  early  age,  are  still  the  delight  of  all  hu- 
mane generations."  The  voice  of  Carlyle  is  cer- 
tainly in  the  rejoinder  of  Collins.  "  Ay,  but  those 
marble  carvings,  for  those  who  wrought  and  revered 
them,  were  holy  realities.  Our  modern  poems  and 
other  tinsel-work  are  for  us  mere  toys,  as  musical 
snuff-boxes  or  gauze  flowers."  He  admired  Shake- 
speare as  a  hero,  but  could  hardly  forgive  him  for  not 
having  written  a  history  of  England ;  and  his  tone 
about  the  devotion  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  to  the 
stage  was  sometimes  apologetic.  I  do  not  remember 
to  have  heard  him  speak  at  all  of  the  great  paint- 
ers and  sculptors.  He  was  impatiently,  and  always, 
searching  for  realities,  albeit  so  many  of  them,  when 
found,  were  dry  and  dusty.  I  have  heard  that  when 
he  first  came  to  London  he  had  a  prejudice  even 
against  portraits.      Count   d'Orsay   was   only  able 


118  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

(1839)  to  make  liis  clever  sketch  half-surreptitioiisly. 
Much  difficulty  the  artists  had  in  persuading  him  to 
sit  for  a  picture.  The  first  to  coax  him  in  that  di- 
rection was  his  early  neighbor,  Maclise — a  good  work 
of  art,  but  evidently  by  an  artist  who  knew  hardly 
more  than  the  rest  of  the  world  at  that  time  (1833) 
the  man  he  was  delineating  on  canvas.  Samuel 
Laurence,  who  interpreted  so  many  good  heads  in 
America,  drew  a  good  one  of  Carlyle,  published  in 
the  American  edition  of  his  "  Miscellanies."  One  of 
the  most  notable  pictures  of  him  is  that  least  known, 
by  Madox  Brown.  This  excellent  artist  designed  a 
picture  of  "Work,"  in  which  he  desired  to  introduce 
the  Rev.  Frederic  D.  Maurice  as  a  working-man's 
friend,  and  Carlyle  as  the  Prophet  of  Work.  lie 
had  no  difficulty  with  Maurice,  but  Carlyle  refused 
to  sit,  and  could  barely  be  persuaded  to  accompany 
the  artist  to  South  Kensington,  and  stand  against  a 
rail  while  a  photographer  took  the  full-length  which 
Madox  Brown  needed.  Carlyle  made  a  grimace, 
however,  and  said,  "Can  I  go  now?"  The  picture 
represents  builders  busy  on  the  street;  some  fash- 
ionably dressed  ladies  are  picking  their  way  past  the 
bricks  and  mortar;  Maurice  looks  on  meditatively, 
and  with  some  sadness  in  his  face,  at  this  continu- 
ance of  the  curse,  "In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt 
thou  eat  thy  bread ;"  while  Carlyle  rejoices  in  it, 
and,  leaning  on  his  cane,  laughs  heartily — this  laugh 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  119 

being  the  outcome  of  the  grimace  which  he  left  on 
the  photograph.  Few  of  his  portraits  are  satisfac- 
tory, partly,  no  doubt,  because  of  the  somewliat  mis- 
erable look  which  spread  over  his  face  whenever  he 
was  induced  to  sit  for  his  portrait.  However,  he 
gradually  gained  a  respect  for  the  artist's  work,  and 
expressed  a  childlike  surprise  and  pleasure  at  seeing 
his  face  emerge  from  the  chaos  of  pigments.  Per- 
haps the  best  picture  of  him  as  a  young  man  was  that 
taken  by  Count  d'Orsay,  soon  after  the  publication 
of  "  Sartor  Kesartus."  A  fairly  satisfactory  picture 
of  him  is  that  by  Eobert  Tait,  owned  by  Lady  Ash- 
burton,  "An  Interior  at  Chelsea."  The  portrait  by 
G.  F.  Watts  is  too  gloomy ;  that  made  by  Whistler 
is  a  powerful  work,  but  makes  the  author,  as  he  sits 
in  a  rude  chair,  hat  in  hand,  too  much  like  a  beggar 
at  a  church  door.  At  request  of  his  friend,  Lady 
Ashburton,  Carlyle  sat  for  the  sculptor,  Thomas 
Woolner.  It  was  a  very  difficult  work ;  Carlyle  was 
now  an  image  of  still  agony,  and  now  all  fluent 
spirit.  The  sculptor  said  it  was  like  trying  to  model 
a  flame.  He  has  achieved  the  best  success  in  that 
direction  of  art.  Woolner's  bust  is  powerful,  but 
the  better  part  of  Carlyle  cannot  be  suggested  in 
marble ;  granite  would  be  a  better  medium.  Hap- 
pily, about  two  years  before  Carlyle's  death,  his 
friend  Mrs.  Helen  Allingliam  was  able  to  make 
sketches   of   him   from   time  to  time,  in   bis  own 


120  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

home,  without  interfering  with  his  ways.  In  her 
beautiful  art  the  last  years  of  Carlyle  are  preserved ; 
he  is  seen  reading,  smoking,  conversing,  meditating, 
and  even  asleep.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  literary 
art  of  her  husband,  the  poet — so  long  intimate  with 
Carlyle — may  some  day  give  the  world  from  his 
memory  companion-pictures  to  these. 

Carlyle  had  much  admiration  for  his  neighbor 
John  Leech,  and  thoroughly  enjoyed  his  cartoons  in 
Punch.  When  that  master  of  caricature  died  pre- 
maturely of  a  nervous  disorder,  from  which  it  was 
tliought  he  might  have  recovered  but  for  the  organ- 
grinders,  Carlyle,  who  suffered  from  the  same  frater- 
nity, mingled  with  his  sorrow  for  Leech  some  severe 
sermons  against  that  kind  of  liberty  which  "permit- 
ted Italian  foreigners  to  invade  London,  and  kill 
John  Leech,  and  no  doubt  hundreds  of  other  nervous 
people,  who  die  and  make  no  sign."  John  Leech 
was  doing  his  work  thoroughly  well,  and  that  is  the 
only  liberty  worth  anything.  Carlyle  did  not  attend 
the  theatre.  I  have  sometimes  suspected  that  there 
was  in  him  some  survival  of  the  religious  horror  of 
theatres  which  prevailed  at  Annandale.  He  went  to 
hear  Charles  Dickens  read  his  works,  and  enjoyed 
that  extremely.  "  I  had  no  conception,  before  hear- 
ing Dickens  read,  of  what  capacities  lie  in  the  human 
face  and  voice.  Ko  theatre-stage  could  have  had 
more  players  than  seemed  to  flit  about  his  face,  and 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  121 

all  tones  were  present.  There  was  no  need  of  any 
orchestra."  Such  enjoyments  were  very  rare,  how- 
ever, as,  indeed,  they  were  poor  beside  the  scenery 
of  history,  the  heroic  figures  of  great  men,  and  the 
world  drama,  on  which  the  eye  of  Carlyle  never 
closed.  The  dramatic  and  other  arts  came  within 
his  reach  too  late  in  life.  He  had  passed  the  age 
when  he  could  enjoy  them  for  beauty  or  turn  them 
to  use ;  and  w^hen  the  further  age  came,  and  the  fee- 
bleness which  the  arts  might  have  beguiled,  he  had 
no  pleasure  in  them. 

XIY. 

Carlyle's  was  not  only  an  essentially  religious  mind, 
but  even  passionately  so.  His  profound  reverence, 
his  ever-burning  flame  of  devout  thought,  made  him 
impatient  of  all  such  substitutes  for  these  as  dogmas 
and  ceremonies — the  lamps  gone  out  long  ago.  There 
was  a  sort  of  divine  anger  that  filled  him  whenever 
forced  to  contemplate  selfishness  and  egotism  in  the 
guise  of  humility  and  faith. 

"When  Emerson  was  on  one  of  his  earlier  visits  to 
England,  large  numbers  of  fine  gentlemen  whom  he 
met  desired  him  to  introduce  them  to  Carlyle.  Some 
of  these  were  crack-brained  egoists,  others  actuated, 
as  he  saw,  by  curiosity,  and  he  saved  such  from  the 
catastrophes  they  invited  by  saying,  mildly,  "  Why 
should  you  wish  to  have   aquafortis  thrown  over 

6 


122  THOMAS   CAELTLE. 

you?"  In  one  case  Emerson's  name  introduced  to 
him  a  vegetarian,  with  whom  Carlyle  went  to  w^alk. 
Unfortunately,  his  companion  expatiated  too  much 
upon  his  then  favorite  topic,  upon  which  Carlyle 
broke  out  with,  "  There's  Piccadilly ;  there  it  has 
been  for  a  hundred  years,  and  there  it  will  be  when 
you  and  your  damned  potato-gospel  are  dead  and 
forgotten."  He  was  more  patient  in  listening  to 
Miss  Bacon,  also  introduced  by  Emerson,  when  she 
tried  to  persuade  him  that  Shakespeare's  plays  were 
written  by  Lord  Bacon.  Carlyle  never  thought  very 
much  of  the  philosopher  who  had  been  unable  to 
recognize  such  a  contemporary  as  Kepler ;  and  his 
only  reply  to  Miss  Bacon  was,  "  Lord  Bacon  could  as 
easily  have  created  this  planet  as  he  could  have  writ- 
ten '  Hamlet.' "  I  have  heard  that  when  she  had  gone 
he  added  to  a  letter  written  to  his  friend  in  Concord 
the  brief  postscript,  "  Your  woman's  mad.  T.  C." 
He  was  apt  to  meet  a  new-comer  as  he  met  Bayard 
Taylor,  with  a  challenge,  but  knew  how  to  yield 
gracefully  when  he  found  an  able  man.  One  even- 
ing a  German  philologist  came,  who  said  he  had 
come  over  to  investigate  "the  roots  of  the  Welsh 
language."  Carlyle  said  "  if  a  cartload  of  those  roots 
were  brought  to  his  door,  he  wouldn't  give  sixpence 
for  them."  But  the  German  persisted  with  his  talk 
about  roots,  and  in  ten  minutes  Carljde  was  absorbed 
in  the  matter  and  bringing  out  his  vast  lore  of  old 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  123 

Scotch  and  Gaelic  words,  until  at  length  the  philol- 
ogist went  off  enriched  with  a  "  cartload  "  of  impor- 
tant facts.  An  English  Unitarian  who  sought  to  en- 
list him  in  a  scheme  for  a  ^ew  Universal  Chnrch 
fared  badly.  Carljle  never  liked  Unitarianism,  re- 
garding it  as  a  competitive  variety  of  that  Colerid- 
gean  "moonshine"  devised  by  and  for  those  who 
had  not  the  courage  of  their  principles.  "  If  so  far, 
why  not  farther?"  He  preferred  Quakerism,  the 
one  religion  before  which  Voltaire  bowed  his  head. 
It  was  often  the  case  that  Carlyle's  attack  was  a 
feint;  if  he  met  with  a  sturdy  defence,  implying 
character,  he  knew  how  to  surrender  graciously.  A 
man  once  came  in  saying  he  had  been  studying  Car- 
lyle's books,  and  was  convinced  by  them  that  every 
man  had  some  work  to  do  in  the  world;  he  had 
come  to  ask  help  in  trying  to  find  out  what  his  own 
work  was.  "  Ye're  a  great  fool,"  exclaimed  Carlyle, 
"  to  come  to  me  to  learn  what  you  have  got  to  find 
out  with  your  heart's  blood  !"  A  modest  and  forci- 
ble reply,  however,  cleared  the  way  for  a  good  con- 
versation. With  men  who  were  makins:  sacrifices 
for  a  cause  Carlyle  was  not  only  patient,  but  sympa- 
thetic, even  when  he  was  opposed  to  their  cause. 
On  the  day  of  Mazzini's  death  Carlyle  talked  with  a 
good  deal  of  feeling  about  him.  "  I  remember  well 
when  he  sat  for  the  first  time  on  the  seat  there, 
thirty -six  years  ago.     A  more  beautiful  person  I 


124:  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

never  beheld,  with  his  soft  flashing  eyes  and  face 
full  of  intelligence.  He  had  great  talent — certainly 
the  only  acquaintance  of  mine  of  anything  like  equal 
intellect  who  ever  became  entangled  in  what  seemed 
to  me  hopeless  visions.  He  was  rather  silent,  spoke 
chiefly  in  French,  though  he  spoke  good  English 
even  then,  notwithstanding  a  strong  accent.  It  was 
plain  he  might  have  taken  a  high  rank  in  literature. 
He  wrote  well,  as  it  was — sometimes  for  the  love  of 
it,  at  others  when  he  wanted  a  little  money;  but 
he  never  wrote  what  he  might  had  he  devoted 
himself  to  that  kind  of  work.  He  had  fine  tastes, 
particularly  in  music.  But  he  gave  himself  up  as  a 
martyr  and  sacrifice  to  his  aims  for  Italy.  He  lived 
almost  in  squalor.  His  health  was  poor  from  the 
first ;  but  he  took  no  care  of  it.  He  used  to  smoke 
a  great  deal,  and  drink  coffee  with  bread  crumbled 
in  it;  but  hardly  gave  any  attention  to  his  food. 
His  mother  used  to  send  him  money ;  but  he  gave 
it  away.  When  she  died,  she  left  him  as  much  as 
two  hundred  pounds  a  year — all  she  had;  but  it 
went  to  Italian  beggars.  His  mother  was  the  only 
member  of  his  family  who  stuck  to  him.  His  father 
soon  turned  his  back  on  his  son.  His  only  sister 
married  a  strict  Koman  Catholic,  and  she  herself  be- 
came too  strict  to  have  anything  to  do  with  him. 
He  did  see  her  once  or  twice ;  but  the  interviews 
were  too  painful  to  be  repeated.     He  desired,  I  am 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  125 

told,  to  see  lier  again  when  he  was  dying;  but  she 
declined.  Poor  Mazzini !  I  could  not  have  any 
sj^mpathy  with  many  of  his  views  and  liopes.  He 
used  to  come  here  and  talk  about  the  '  solidarity  of 
peoples ;'  and  when  he  found  that  I  was  less  and  less 
interested  in  such  things,  he  had  yet  another  attrac- 
tion than  myself  which  brought  him  to  us.  But  he 
found  that  she  also  by  no  means  entered  into  his 
opinions,  and  his  visits  became  fewer.  But  we  al- 
ways esteemed  him.  He  was  a  very  religious  soul. 
When  I  first  knew  him  he  reverenced  Dante  chiefly, 
if  not  exclusively.  When  his  letters  were  opened  at 
the  post-office  here,  Mazzini  became,  for  the  first 
time,  known  to  the  English  people.  There  was  great 
indignation  at  an  English  government  taking  the 
side  of  the  Austrian  against  Italian  patriots;  and 
Mazzini  was  much  sought  for,  invited  to  dinners, 
and  all  that.  But  he  did  not  want  the  dinners.  He 
went  to  but  few  places.  He  formed  an  intimacy 
with  the  Asliursts  which  did  him  great  good — gave 
him  a  kind  of  home-circle  for  the  rest  of  his  life  in 
England.  At  last  it  has  come  to  an  end.  I  went  to 
see  him  just  before  he  left  London  for  the  last  time, 
passed  an  hour,  and  came  away  feeling  that  I  should 
never  see  him  again.  And  so  it  is.  The  papers  and 
people  have  gone  blubbering  away  over  him — the 
very  papers  and  people  that  denounced  him  during 
life,  seeing  nothing  of  the  excellence  that  was  in 


126  THOMAS   CAKLTLE. 

him.  They  now  praise  him  without  any  perception 
of  his  defects.  Poor  Mazzini !  After  all,  he  suc- 
ceeded. He  died  receiving  the  homage  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  seeing  Italy  united,  with  Eome  for  its  capi- 
tal. Well,  one  may  be  glad  he  has  succeeded.  We 
wait  to  see  whether  Italy  will  make  anything  great 
out  of  what  she  has  got.     We  wait." 

Severe  as  Carlyle  was  upon  mere  idlers  and  lion- 
hunters,  where  there  was  any  opportunity  of  assist- 
ing or  usefully  advising  any  one  in  difficulties  or 
seriously  desirous  of  doing  good  work,  no  w^oman's 
heart  could  be  more  tender.  A  young  Scotchman, 
James  Dodds,  went  off  to  England  with  three  shil- 
lings in  his  pocket ;  at  I^ewcastle  he  became  one  of 
a  strolling  company  of  low  -  comedians ;  after  that, 
tried  to  gain  a  living  as  schoolmaster,  and  failed; 
next,  failed  as  an  editor ;  and  ultimately  got  a  place 
as  clerk  with  a  solicitor  near  Melrose,  and  studied 
law.  But  Dodds  had  a  good  deal  of  talent,  and  w^as 
ambitious  of  literary  fame.  A  cousin  of  his  wrote 
for  him  to  ask  advice  of  Carlyle,  who  gave  it : 

"It  is  doubtful  to  me,"  he  wrote,  "whether  the  highest  conceiva- 
ble success  in  that  course  might  not  be  for  your  cousin  an  evil  in  place 
of  a  blessing.  I  speak  advisedly  in  this  matter.  There  is  no  madder 
section  of  human  business  now  weltering  under  the  sun  than  that 
of  periodical  literature  in  England  at  this  day.  The  meagrest  bread- 
and-water  wages  at  any  honest,  steady  occupation,  I  should  say,  are 
preferable  to  a  young  man,  especially  for  an  ambitious,  excitable 
young  man.     I  mistake  much  if  your  cousin  were  not  wise  to  stick 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  127 

steadfastly  by  his  law,  and  what  benefit  it  will  yield  him,  studying,  of 
course,  in  all  ways  to  perfect  and  cultivate  himself,  but  leaving  all  lit- 
erary glory,  etc.,  etc.,  to  lie  in  the  distance — an  obscure  possibility  of 
the  future,  which  he  might  attain,  perhaps,  but  also  would  do  very  well 
without  attaining.  In  another  year,  it  seems,  his  official  salary  may  be 
expected  to  increase  to  something  tolerable ;  he  has  his  mother  and 
loved  ones  within  reach ;  he  has,  or  by  diligence  can  borrow,  some 
books  worth  reading ;  his  own  free  heart  is  within  him  to  shape  into 
humble  wisdom  or  mar  into  violent  madness  ;  God's  great  sky  is  over 
him,  God's  peaceable  green  earth  around  him ;  I  really  know  not  that 
he  ought  to  be  in  haste  to  quit  such  arrangements." 

James  Dodds  followed  this  advice,  and  became  an 
eminent  lawyer.  But  Carlyle  followed  up  his  first 
advice  with  friendly  letters.     In  ISil  he  writes: 

*'  By-the-way,  do  you  read  German  ?  It  would  be  worth  your  while 
to  leara  it,  and  not  impossible — not  even  difficult — even  where  you 
are,  if  you  be  resolved.  These  young  obscure  years  ought  to  be  inces- 
santly employed  in  gaining  knowledge  of  things  worth  knowing — es- 
pecially of  heroic  human  souls  worth  knowing ;  and  you  may  believe 
me,  the  obscurer  such  years  are,  it  is  apt  to  be  the  better.  Books  are 
needed,  but  not  yet  many  books ;  a  few  well  read.  An  open,  true, 
patient,  and  valiant  soul  is  needed ;  that  is  the  one  thing  needfuL" 

Later  on,  when  Mr.  Dodds  wished  to  settle  in  Lon- 
don, Carlyle  was  prepared  to  aid  him : 

' '  In  this  immeasurable  treadmill  of  a  place  I  have  no  time  to  an- 
swer letters,"  he  says,  but  "if  at  any  time  a  definite  sen-ice  can  be 
done  by  answering,  doubt  not  I  shall  make  time  for  it."  "Of  law  in 
London,"  he  writes  again,  "  I  know  nothing  practical.  I  see  some  few 
lawyers  in  society  at  times,  a  tough,  withered,  wiry  sort  of  men ;  but 
they  hide  their  law  economies,  even  when  I  question  them,  very  much 


128  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

under  lock  and  key.  I  understand  that  the  labor  is  enormous  in  their 
profession,  and  the  reward  likewise ;  the  successful  lawyer  amasses 
hundreds  of  thousands,  and  actually  converts  himself  into  a  '  spiritual 
speldrin' — no  blessed  bargain." 

Mr.  Dodds,  who,  besides  becoming  a  successful 
barrister,  wrote  "  The  Fifty  Years'  Struggle  of  the 
Scottish  Covenanters,"  and  other  works,  was  for 
many  years  a  valued  visitor  at  the  memorable  even- 
ings in  Chelsea. 

Carlyle  was  absolutely  trusted  by  literary  people. 
For  this  reason,  if  he  consented  to  be  an  arbiter,  his 
arbitration  was  never  appealed  from.  No  one  ever 
suspected,  or  could  suspect,  that  any  personal  affec- 
tion or  prejudice  could  ever  make  the  balances 
waver  in  his  hand.  The  letter  in  Part  III.  dated 
September  26,  1848,  for  the  first  time  herein  pub- 
lished, written  to  a  gentleman  whom  I  knew,  will 
show  the  wisdom  and  care  exhibited  by  Carlyle  in 
differences  of  such  character. 

XV. 

I  have  often  recalled  the  words  of  Carlyle,  in  the 
room  at  Edinburgh,  concerning  Craigenpnttoch  when 
he  last  visited  it :  it  seemed  to  him  a  Yalley  of  Je- 
hoshaphat.  The  Yalley  full  of  graves,  where  Jews 
and  Mussulmans  desire  to  be  buried  because,  as  they 
suppose,  that  is  to  be  the  scene  of  the  final  judgment ! 
Edgar  Quinet  brings  his  "Wanderer,  Ahasuerus,  to  the 


THOMAS    CARLYLE.  129 

Yalley  of  Jehosliapbat,  seeking  the  repose  wliieli  has 
been  forbidden  him  until  the  day  of  judgment.  In 
answer  to  his  final  appeal  for  some  herb  that  will 
cure  the  wound  in  his  heart,  the  Yallej  says  to 
Ahasuerus,  "My  simples  cure  all  pains  but  those  of 
a  heart  in  which  the  thorn  remains."  Carlyle,  too, 
was  a  Wanderer,  and  wherever  he  went  was  a  small 
tract  of  that  sombre  Yalley.  He  had  wandered  out 
of  the  fore-world  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  come 
into  an  age  to  which  he  did  not  belong.  The  thorn 
in  his  heart,  which  the  solitudes  of  Scotland  could 
not  remove,  was  his  utter  inability  to  bring  his  intel- 
lect into  any  harmony  with  the  faith  and  ideas  of  the 
people  in  that  region  which  always  held  his  affec- 
tions. After  he  had  come  to  London,  where  he  was 
scandalized  by  the  frivolous  and  tippling  habits  of  so 
many  even  of  the  literary  men,  he  saw  the  old  folks 
and  friends  of  Scotland  in  rosy  tints.  Again  and 
again  he  went  back  there,  but,  as  Mrs.  Carlyle  told  me, 
the  majority  of  them  were  so  narrow  and  dogmatic 
that  Carlyle  hardly  drew  a  peaceful  breath  till  he 
got  back  to  Chelsea.  But  in  London  he  was  quite 
as  much  what  M.  Taine  named  him — a  Mastodon. 
His  kingdom  was  extinct ;  and  as  he  measured  bane 
and  blessing  by  that  past  standard,  his  pessimism  was 
inevitable.  In  the  society  of  London  Carlyle  never 
had  any  pedantry  about  trifles  of  conventionality. 
He  told  me  that  his  stomach  had  never  ceased  to 


130  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

protest  against  the  late  dinner-liour,  but  he  made  his 
stomach  submit.  He  even  thought  his  American 
friends  made  too  much  complaint  of  the  precedence 
accorded  titled  persons  in  society.  It  was,  he  said, 
traditional  and  not  quite  reasonable ;  but  it  was  con- 
tinued mainlj  because  of  the  convenience  of  having 
already  settled,  without  any  one  being  responsible 
for  it,  a  matter  that  might  become  complicated  and 
troublesome.  It  was  in  far  other  matters  than  these 
that  Carlyle  failed  to  find  his  habitat.  The  spiritual 
pugnacity  of  the  burgher  in  him  was  represented  by 
an  instinctive  dislike  of  commonplace.  He  hated 
what  he  called  Schwdrmerei — the  heaping  of  assent 
upon  assent — to  an  almost  morbid  extent.  It  is  even 
possible  that  if  his  early  antislavery  and  other  radi- 
calism had  not  become  so  general,  some  of  his  para- 
doxical writings  might  never  have  appeared.  Masses 
of  men  following  either  a  Briglit  or  a  Beaconsfield 
were  to  him  equally  repulsive.  One  evening  when 
I  was  taking  tea  with  him,  a  third  who  was  present 
expressed  his  joy  that  there  was  one  man  in  England 
who  sat  down  to  his  own  cup  of  tea  and  his  own 
pipe,  as  it  were  under  his  own  vine  and  fig-tree,  and 
expressed  his  independent  views  of  men  and  events 
without  even  remembering  whether  they  were  the 
common  opinion  or  not.  Instantly  the  Scotch 
burgher  rose  again  in  Carlyle,  and  he  expatiated  on 
the  "  God-fearing  men  "  he  had  known  in  his  youth. 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  131 

He  was  apt  on  such  occasion  to  take  up  parables  suf- 
ficiently commonplace,  but  dressed  by  him  in  novel 
costumes.  "  Some  one  was  telling  me  iu  Scotland  of 
a  shepherd  of  the  moors  driving  some  sheep  into 
Dumfries.  All  at  once  the  bell-wether  took  a  fancy 
to  go  another  road  altogether,  and  the  rest  began  to 
follow.  The  shepherd  ran  ahead  and  held  his  staff 
for  a  bar  to  them,  a  yard  from  the  ground ;  but  one 
after  the  other  they  jumped  over  it.  The  poor  fel- 
low was  spattered  from  head  to  foot  with  mud,  and 
got  out  of  it  as  best  he  could.  But  the  sheep  went 
on  and  on  the  same  wrong  way;  and  every  one 
jumped  at  the  point  where  the  shepherd's  staff  had 
once  been.  When  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  there 
was  in  that  whole  proceeding  the  light  of  one  sheep's 
head  I" 

When  she  who  had  been  the  mediator  between 
Carlyle  and  the  world  he  was  in,  but  not  of,  was  gone, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  his  mental  health  first  gave 
way.  Mrs.  Carlyle  was  more  than  his  other  self.  In- 
stinctively all  who  came  near  them  accepted  her  as 
the  head  in  matters  relating  to  the  visible  Kim.  The 
tailor  measuring  him  for  a  coat  says,  "  Will  you  have 
a  velvet  collar,  ma'am?"  ISTow  suddenly  this  "light 
of  his  life  as  if  gone  out,"  he  seemed  to  grope.  His 
eye  saw  but  one  thing  clearly — a  grave.  He  seemed 
to  be  concentrating  all  of  his  powers  of  vision  into 
that  lens,  as  if  to  pierce  it  and  catch  some  glimpse  of 


132  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

that  Beyond  which  hitherto  had  baffled  him.  Once 
he  spoke  to  me  of  the  "  strange  experiences  "  he  had 
undergone  within  the  few  months  following  his 
wife's  death.  For  a  year,  or  nearly  two,  it  was  as  if 
the  world  had  become  to  him  a  realm  of  shadows. 
The  fineness  of  both  his  memory  and  his  judgment 
seemed  blunted,  and  many  of  the  persons  he  had 
known,  and  used  to  describe  with  interest  and  dis- 
crimination, were,  if  mentioned,  brushed  away  like 
flies — mere  annoyance  to  a  heart  trying  to  find  si- 
lence and  repose  in  the  grave  where  it  lay  with  his 
lost  treasure.  After  a  few  years  he  rallied  from  this 
condition  somewhat,  but  he  was  never  quite  the  same 
man  again,  unless  in  exceptional  hours.  "Emerson 
complains  of  his  memory,"  he  once  said, "  but  I  fancy 
his  memory  is  good  enough ;  probably  it  is  with  him 
as  with  me,  much  that  he  hears  possesses  no  interest 
for  him,  and  comes  in  one  ear  to  go  out  of  the  other." 
He  increasingly  disliked  to  be  in  large  companies, 
and  if  any  argument  was  begun  with  him  was  apt  to 
end  it  abruptly  with  a  concessum  sit.  He  was  rest- 
less too. 

The  last  time  that  Carlyle  appeared  in  any  public 
assembly  was  on  March  5, 1879,  when  he  went  with 
Allingham  to  hear  Ms  friend,  the  charming  story- 
teller W.  R.  S.  Ralston,  recite  and  interpret  his  fairy- 
lore  in  St.  James's  Hall.  It  was  for  the  benefit  of 
the  innocent  sufferers  by  the  failure  of  the  City  of 


THOMAS    CAHLYLE.  133 

Glasgow  Bank,  with  whom  Carlyle  sympathized. 
During  the  recital  of  one  of  the  fables,  a  figure  in- 
troduced of  a  Yampire  seemed  to  him  to  mean  all- 
devouring  Time  —  Tempus  edax  rerum  —  and  Mr. 
Ealston  tells  me  that  he  heard  Carlyle  whisper  that 
to  some  one  beside  him.  Carlyle  did  not  stay  long, 
for  already  the  spirit  of  unrest  was  upon  him.  But 
tills  story  ("  The  Witch  and  the  Sun's  Sister,"  which 
is  contained  in  Ealston's  "  Eussian  Folk-tales  ")  made 
an  impression  on  him.  In  the  tale.  Prince  Ivan  leaves 
his  home,  being  warned  that  his  about-to-be-born  sis- 
ter will  be  a  vampire,  and  will  devour  all  her  family. 
He  finds  two  aged  sewing-women,  and  begs  to  live 
with  them ;  but  they  refuse,  having  no  time  to  at- 
tend to  him,  since  they  must  die  as  soon  as  they 
have  used  up  a  trunkf ul  of  needles.  He  journeys  on 
and  makes  the  same  request  of  the  giant  Yertodub 
(Tree-extractor),  who  is  also  too  busy,  since  he  will 
have  to  die  when  he  has  uprooted  the  surrounding 
forests.  The  same  happens  with  a  further  giant, 
Yertogon  (Mountain-leveller),  who  is  to  die  when  he 
has  levelled  all  the  neighboring  mountains.  Ivan 
presses  forward  till  he  reaches  the  house  of  the  sister 
of  the  Sun.  He  leaves  her  to  see  his  old  home  again. 
She  gives  him  a  brush  which  produces  forests,  a 
comb  which  produces  mountains;  so  on  his  way 
back  Ivan  gives  the  giants  plenty  of  work  to  do,  so 
extending  their  lives.     He  also  has  some  talisman 


134  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

which  makes  the  old  sewing-women  young  again. 
Arrived  home,  he  is  pursued  by  his  vampire  sister ; 
but  the  giants  impede  her  with  forests  and  moun- 
tains, and  at  last  he  is  secure  in  the  chamber  of  the 
Sun's  sister.  "  'None  of  them,"  said  Carlyle,  "  could 
help  Ivan ;  they  had  to  stick  to  their  needles  and 
forest-clearings ;  Ivan  must  go  on  his  way  with  the 
like  steadfastness  and  accomplish  what  is  before  him. 
When  he  has  reached  the  light,  he  can  give  them  all 
more  life  and  work,  and  make  their  old  hearts  young 
again  at  it ;  and,  doing  that,  he  gets  beyond  reach  of 
the  Devourer." 

But  Carlyle  himself  was  never  an  Ivan.  He  was 
rather  the  giant  laboring  at  forest  and  mountain  to 
whom  no  Prince  from  the  chamber  of  the  Sun  re- 
turned. He  stood  faithfully  to  what  seemed  to  him 
his  task ;  from  it  he  never  swerved  at  the  call  of  any 
passing  wanderer,  prince  or  peasant,  till  his  hand  was 
palsied  and  his  eye  grew  dim.  Then  he  sighed  for 
Peath,  which  was  over-long  in  coming. 


Part  II. 
BY  THE  GEAYE  OF  CAELYLE 


BY  THE  GIIAYE  OF  CARLYLE. 


EccLEFECHAN,  February  10,  1881. 

On  Saturday  last  a  child  came  to  me  and  said, 
"He  is  dead."  I  did  not  ask,  Who?  For  nearly 
two  weeks  all  eyes  in  Europe  and  America  wliich 
know  the  value  of  a  great  man  in  this  world  had 
been  centred  on  that  home  in  Chelsea  where  Carlyle 
lay  dying.  He  had  long  been  sighing  for  death,  for, 
he  said,  "Life  is  a  burden  when  the  strength  has 
gone  out  of  it."  For  a  long  time  he  had  been  un- 
able to  receive  his  friends  in  the  evening :  those  true 
N"octes  Ambrosianee  were  forever  past.  Brief  inter- 
views with  intimate  friends  in  the  early  afternoon, 
followed  by  a  drive  with  one  or  another  of  them, 
continued  for  about  a  year  more.  But  these  drives 
were  not  cheerful.  The  old  man's  voice  was  some- 
times scarcely  audible.  "  The  daughters  of  song  are 
low."  I  found  it  painful  to  have  to  bend  so  close  to 
catch  the  words,  which  when  caught  showed  the  in- 
tellect still  abiding  in  its  strength.  It  was  long  ere 
it  must  also  be  said,  "Those  that  look  out  of  the 


138  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

windows  be  darkened."  But  slowly  tliat  time  came 
too.  The  old  man  sank  into  a  state  of  painless  pros- 
tration. The  effort  to  attend  to  what  was  said  to 
him  was  a  disturbance,  and  all  was  silent  around 
him.  He  was  conscious  nearly  unto  the  last,  and 
thoughtfully  intimated  to  his  nephew  and  niece,  who 
had  so  long  watched  beside  him,  that  he  was  in  no 
pain.  His  last  word  was  a  gentle  "  Good-bye."  At 
half -past  eight,  February  5,  the  end  came  without 
struggle.  The  golden  lamp  was  not  shattered;  it 
went  out.  And  how  dark  seemed  London  that  day ! 
On  Monday  morning  I  started  northward  through 
a  snow-storm,  and  in  the  evening  was  driving  through 
the  narrow  streets  of  Annan.  Along  these  same 
streets  he  and  Irving  used  to  walk  in  their  school- 
days. Next  morning  I  called  on  his  sister,  Mrs. 
Austin,  who  much  resembles  him.  She  spoke  sweet- 
ly of  her  great  brother  in  his  early  youth — how  lov- 
ing he  was  as  a  son,  how  affectionate  to  them  all, 
even  in  those  days  when  his  mind  was  harassed  with 
doubts  and  misgivings  about  the  path  on  which  he 
should  enter.  Sleep  might  fail  him,  and  appetite, 
but  love  for  those  who  needed  his  love  never  failed 
him.  She  is  one  of  two  sisters  surviving.  The  one 
remaining  brother,  James,  resides  in  a  pleasant  home 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  is  about  seventy-five  years 
of  age.  The  other  surviving  sister  is  Mrs.  Aitken, 
of  Dumfries. 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  139 

The  house  in  which  Carlyle  was  born  will  proba- 
bly be  preserved  as  a  monument — perhaps  with  a 
library  in  it  for  the  neighborhood.  There  could  be 
none  better.  In  this  small  house  his  parents,  at  his 
birth,  were  only  able  to  occupy  two  rooms.  That  in 
which  the  great  man  was  born  is.  humble  enough,  lit 
by  one  little  window — the  bed  built  into  the  wall. 
The  rooms  are  now  occupied  by  the  sexton  who  dug 
his  grave. 

Between  that  small  room  where  Carlyle  first  saw 
the  light,  and  that  smaller  grave  which  hides  him 
from  the  light,  it  is  hardly  a  hundred  steps:  yet 
what  a  life  -  pilgrimage  lies  between  those  terms! 
what  stretches  of  noble  years,  of  immense  labors,  of 
invincible  days  rising  from  weary  nights,  mark  the 
fourscore  years  and  Rve  that  led  from  the  stone- 
mason's threshold  to  a  hero's  tomb  ! 

What  could  his  parents  give  him  ?  An  ever-pres- 
ent sense  of  an  invisible  world,  of  which  this  life  is 
the  threshold — a  world  of  transcendent  joys  marking 
the  crown  which  the  universe  prepares  for  virtue, 
with  an  underside  of  unspeakable  pains  which  mark 
the  eternal  brand  fixed  on  evil-doing.  Of  this  world 
they  could  teach  him  little,  only  that  it  was  a  place 
of  brief  probation  by  suffering  and  self-denial.  For 
the  rest  they  can  only  send  him  to  a  poor  little  school 
hard  by.  It,  and  Ecclefechan  influences  generally, 
are  travestied  in  the  experiences  of  Herr  Teufels- 


140  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

drockh  in  his  native  " Entepf ulil."  "Of  the  insig- 
nificant portion  of  my  education  which  depended  on 
schools,"  he  says,  "there  need  almost  no  notice  be 
taken.  I  learned  what  others  learn,  and  kept  stored 
by  in  a  corner  of  my  head,  seeing  as  yet  no  manner 
of  use  in  it." 

But,  meanwhile,  there  is  another  university  than 
that  at  Edinburgh,  and  little  Thomas  is  already  study- 
ing in  it  more  deeply  than  pedagogue  or  parent  sus- 
pects. That  university  is  the  universe  itself,  and 
little  by  little  he  finds  that  Ecclefechan  is  a  centre 
of  it.  The  little  burn  runs  before  the  door;  as  he 
wades  in  it  the  brook  whispers  of  its  course  as  it 
passes  on  to  the  river,  on  to  the  sea,  out  into  the 
universe.  The  swallows  come  from  afar  —  from 
Africa  and  other  regions — to  nestle  in  the  eaves  of 
the  house.  The  stage-coach,  as  it  comes  and  departs, 
becomes  mystical  to  the  lad  when  he  learns  that  it 
connects  the  village  with  distant  cities,  and  is  weav- 
ing human  habitations  together  like  a  shuttle.  The 
village  road  leads  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

On  the  day  before  the  funeral  I  went  out  to 
Craigenputtoch,  the  name  of  the  solitude  in  whose 
one  house  Carlyle  and  his  wife  began  life  together. 
The  nearest  railway-station  is  about  ten  miles  dis- 
tant from  the  place,  and,  as  I  was  warned,  affords  no 
means  of  conveyance,  so  I  started  in  a  carriage  to 
drive  over  the  fifteen  miles  of  country  road.     It  is 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  141 

a  pilgrimage  not  without  way -side  shrines.  Dura- 
fries,  to  begin  with,  is  the  town  of  Robert  Burns, 
who  died  July  21,  1796,  when  Carlyle  was  in  his 
eighth  month.  Here,  in  the  church -yard,  is  the 
beautiful  monument  of  Burns;  the  Muse  touches 
him  on  the  shoulder  as  he  holds  the  plough.  On 
the  outward  road  we  pause  at  Iron  Gray  Church  to 
see  the  tomb  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  erected  over 
Helen  Walker,  whom  he  had  made  the  friend  and 
exemplar  of  many  children  under  the  name  of  Jean- 
nie  Deans,  the  girl  who  would  not  swerve  from  ver- 
bal truth  to  save  her  sister's  life,  but  did  journey  to 
London  on  foot  to  save  her.  The  epitaph  bids  the 
wayfarer  "  Respect  the  grave  of  poverty  when  com- 
bined with  love  of  truth  and  dear  affection."  Not 
much  farther  on  is  the  solitary  monument  of  the  old 
decipherer  of  mossy  epitaphs,  "  Old  Mortality."  N'ow 
and  then  a  stately  old  mansion  is  passed,  and  some- 
cultured  vales,  but  at  length  the  road  enters  upon  a 
wild,  bleak  country.  The  snow  covers  the  desolate 
moors ;  the  road  is  stony ;  but  it  is  all  picturesque 
as  I  remember  how  along  every  mile  of  it  Emerson 
drove  in  a  gig  to  clasp  heart  and  hand  of  his  young 
intellectual  brother  forty -eight  years  before.  "I 
found  the  house  amid  desolate  heathery  hills,  where 
the  lonely  scholar  nourished  his  mighty  heart."  And 
now,  too,  I  found  it,  the  home  of  a  kindly  shepherd 
and  his  family.    Arthur  Johnstone-Douglas,  of  Glen 


142  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

Stuart,  is  witli  me,  and  we  are  given  by  the  humble 
people  welcome  and  refreshment.  We  sit  in  the 
room  where  "  Sartor  Resartus  "  was  written.  Here 
gathered  around  the  young  thinker  the  faces  of  the 
great  with  whom  he  spiritually  conversed,  "never 
less  alone  than  when  alone."  Here  were  written 
many  of  those  essays  which,  as  Emerson  said  when 
collecting  them,  had  deprived  their  readers  of  sleep. 
The  house  itself  is  much  the  same  in  appearance 
as  it  was  when  Goethe  had  a  sketch  of  it  made  for 
his  translation  of  Carlyle's  "Life  of  Schiller."  A 
large  kitchen  was  added  at  a  later  period,  and  several 
out-houses.  There  are  about  a  thousand  acres  of  the 
estate,  though  much  of  it  is  uncultivated.  While 
Carlyle  resided  there  he  was  only  able  to  cultivate 
some  two  hundred  acres,  most  of  the  produce  of 
which  went  in  the  shape  of  rental  to  the  widow 
Welsh,  Mrs.  Carlyle's  mother.  Only  at  her  death 
did  it  come  into  the  possession  of  Carlyle's  wife. 
Up  to  the  present  time  it  had  belonged  to  the 
author,  and  has  been  under  the  care  of  his  brother 
James,  and  his  son  of  the  same  name.  It  would 
now  revert  to  the  Welsh  family,  were  any  represent- 
ative of  it  living ;  as  it  is,  Craigenputtoch  will  be- 
come the  possession  of  Edinburgh  University.  The 
house  is  neat  and  comfortable.  The  room  which  was 
used  for  a  library  is  commodious,  though  the  out- 
looks are  sombre  enough.     However,  there  are  fine 


MRS.  THOMAS  CARLYLE. 


144:  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

tating  Dumfries.  He  wrote  the  following  letter  to 
his  mother's  brother,  addressed  to  "  Mr.  John  Aitken, 
mason,  Friars'  Yennel,  Dumfries :" 

"  Craigenputtoch,  October  IG,  1832. 

"My  dear  Uncle, — Judge  if  I  am  anxious  to  hear  from  you. 
Except  the  silence  of  the  newspapers,  I  have  no  evidence  that  you  are 
still  spared.  The  disease,  I  see,  has  been  in  your  street ;  in  Shaw's ; 
in  Jamie  Aitken's ;  it  has  killed  your  friend  Thomson  :  who  knows 
what  further  was  its  appointed  work  ?  You  I  strive  to  figure  in  the 
meanwhile  as  looking  at  it,  in  the  universal  terror,  with  some  calm- 
ness, as  knowing  and  practically  believing  that  your  days  and  the 
days  of  those  dear  to  you  were  now,  as  before  and  always,  in  the 
hand  of  God  only,  from  whom  it  is  vain  to  fly,  towards  whom  lies  the 
only  refuge  of  man.  Death's  thousand  doors  have  ever  stood  open  ; 
this,  indeed,  is  a  wide  one,  yet  it  leads  no  farther  than  they  all  lead. 

"Our  boy  was  in  the  town  a  fortnight  ago  (for  I  believe,  by  expe- 
rience, the  infectious  influence  to  be  trifling,  and  quite  inscrutable  to 
man,  therefore  go  and  send  whithereoever  I  have  business,  in  spite  of 
cholera) ;  but  I  had  forgot  that  he  would  not  naturally  see  Shaw  or 
some  of  you,  and  gave  him  no  letter,  so  got  no  tidings.  He  will  call 
on  you  to-morrow,  and  in  any  case  bring  a  verbal  message.  If  you 
are  too  hurried  to  write  in  time  for  him,  send  a  letter  next  day  '  to  the 
care  of  Mrs.  Welsh,  Templand,  Thornhill ;'  tell  me  only  that  you  are 
all  spared  alive. 

*'We  are  for  Annandale  after  Thornhill,  and  may  possibly  enough 
return  by  Dumfries.  I  do  not  participate  in  the  panic.  We  were 
close  beside  cholera  for  many  weeks  in  London.  '  Every  ball  has  its 
billet.' 

"I  hear  the  disease  is  fast  abating.  It  is  likely  enough  to  come 
and  go  among  us,  to  take  up  its  dwelling  with  us  among  our  other 
maladies.  The  sooner  we  grow  to  compose  ourselves  beside  it,  the 
■wiser  for  us.  Man  who  has  reconciled  himself  to  die  need  not  go  dis- 
tracted at  the  manner  of  his  death. 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  145. 

"  God  make  us  all  ready,  and  be  his  time  ours !  No  more  to- 
night. 

**Ever  your  aflfectionate  T.  Cakltle." 

Hither  Emerson's  divining-rod  brought  him  in 
1833.  "  Straight  uprose  that  lone  wayfaring  man," 
to  commune  with  one  lonelier  than  himself,  while  as 
yet  but  few  had  heard  the  names  of  either.  On  leav- 
ing Craigenputtoch,  we  passed  a  craggy  brow,  high 
on  the  left,  overlooking  Dunscore,  which  was  easily 
identified  as  the  point  where  Carlyle  and  Emerson 
sat  together.  "  There  we  sat  down,"  wrote  Emerson, 
"  and  talked  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul."  There 
Carlyle  said,  "  Christ  died  on  the  tree ;  that  built 
Dunscore  kirk  yonder;  that  brought  you  and  me 
together.     Time  has  only  a  relative  existence." 

The  last  words  Carlyle  ever  said  to  me  were, 
"  Give  my  love  to  Emerson.  I  still  think  of  his  visit 
to  us  in  Craigenputtoch  as  the  most  beautiful  thing 
in  my  experience  there." 

That  high  point,  where  the  two  young  thinkers  sat 

and  conversed,  appeared  to  me  as  a  latter-day  Pisgah : 

only  one  of  them  was  to  enter  the  Land  of  Promise 

they  beheld  from  afar.    One  returned  to  his  Yalley 

of  Jehoshaphat  to  dwell  with  the  shades  of  heroes 

whose  world  is  forever  past ;  the  other  passed  on  to 

greet  the  heralds  of  a  world  unborn.     Despair  and 

Hope  have  found  their  fullest  utterances  in  the  Old- 

World  scholar  and  the  New-World  prophet  who  met 

7 


146 


THOMAS   CAELYLE. 


and  parted  on  that  lonely  height  of  Scotland  forty- 
eight  years  ago. 

Dunscore  village  is  seven  miles  from  Craigenput- 
toch.  The  shepherd  told  us  that  the  minister  there 
was  very  aged,  and  had  been  there  a  long  time ; 
probably  would  have  known  Carlyle.  So  we  drove 
over  to  Dunscore,  and  visited  the  Manse,  as  the  par- 
sonage is  termed  in  Scotland.  The  aged  minister 
said  he  had  come  there  after  Mr.  Carlyle  had  gone  to 
London ;  he  had  never  seen  him.  "  But  he  was  one 
of  my  heritors''''  (i.  e.,  pecuniary  helpers), "  and  my  ac- 
quaintance with  him  was  limited  to  correspondence 
concerning  the  educational  needs  of  this  district,  in 
which  I  am  bound  to  say  he  liberally  assisted." 

The  funeral  of  Carlyle,  it  may  be  assumed  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  expressed  wishes,  was  singularly 
private.  Neither  the  day  nor  the  place  of  it  was 
known  to  the  public.  It  was  generally  supposed 
that  he  would  be  buried  beside  his  wife  amid  the 
mouldering  walls  of  Haddington  Cathedral.  How 
strong  were  the  ties  that  bound  his  heart  to  that  spot 
is  shown  in  the  tribute  on  her  grave.  But  with  so 
much  else  which  Carlyle  had  derived  from  his  early 
Hebrew  training,  he  had  a  desire,  like  that  of  the 
patriarchs,  to  be  "  gathered  to  his  people."  But  for 
his  love  of  his  people,  lowly  as  they  were,  probably 
the  grave  of  Carlyle  would  have  been  in  America. 
"I  have,"  he  said  to  Edward  Irving,  when  they 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  14:7 

were  young  men  together — "  I  have  the  ends  of  my 
thoughts  to  bring  together,  which  no  one  can  do  in 
this  thoughtless  scene.  I  have  my  views  of  life  to 
reform,  and  the  whole  plan  of  my  conduct  to  re- 
model; and  withal  I  have  my  health  to  recover. 
And  then  once  more  I  shall  venture  my  bark  upon 
the  waters  of  this  wide  realm,  and,  if  she  cannot 
weather  it,  I  shall  steer  west  and  try  the  waters  of 
another  world."  This  alteraative  must  have  recur- 
red to  him  when  America  alone  was  listening  to  his 
voice ;  when  his  spiritual  biography,  in  "  Sartor  Ke- 
sartus,"  unpublished  in  England,  was  already  speak- 
ing to  American  youth,  as  Emerson  said,  with  an  em- 
phasis that  deprived  them  of  sleep.  But  Carlyle 
loved  his  widowed  mother  and  his  people,  and  could 
not  leave  them.  And  his  last  wish  was  to  rest  among 
them.  As  Israel  died  in  an  Egyptian  palace,  and 
would  have  been  laid  by  Pharaoh  in  the  proudest 
pyramid,  but  charged  his  sons,  "Ye  shall  bury  me 
with  my  people,"  so  could  not  Carlyle  rest  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  which  was  offered,  nor  in  Hadding- 
ton Cathedral,  where  his  wife's  wealthier  kindred 
lay.  Ecclefechan,  long  raised  from  obscurity  by  be- 
ing his  birthplace,  is  now  consecrated  by  holding  his 
dust. 

Had  Carlyle's  aversion  to  all  pomp  and  ostenta- 
tion not  caused  such  strict  privacy  to  be  observed, 
the  funeral  would  have  been  one  of  vast  dimensions. 


148  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

The  Scotch  gentry  would  have  stood  beside  the 
grave  of  one  of  vrhom  they  were  proud;  but  as  it 
was,  a  red -coated  fox-hunt  was  going  on  in  the 
neighborhood.  A  new  minister,  too,  was  installed 
that  day  in  the  neighboring  kirk  of  Cummertrees. 
As  I  drove  to  the  funeral  I  met  the  more  well-to-do 
folk  of  Ecclefechan  driving  thither.  Those  left  in 
the  village  seemed  to  be  mainly  peasants  and  their 
children.  These  were  made  aware  of  the  hour  when 
the  burial  was  to  take  place  by  the  tolling  of  the 
bell  in  the  School  Board  building.  Hundreds  of 
children  gathered  near  the  gate  of  the  church-yard 
or  climbed  on  the  walls.  About  a  hundred  young 
workmen  made  their  way  inside,  and  stood  await- 
ing the  arrival  of  the  body  after  the  night  journey 
from  London.  Soon  after  noon  the  hearse  drove 
up;  with  it  five  coaches,  containing  the  relatives. 
The  cofiin  was  of  plain  oak.  On  it  was  engraved, 
"Thomas  Carlyle:  born  December  4,  1795;  died 
February  5,  1881."  White  flowers  were  upon  it, 
among  them  a  large  wreath.  Along  with  the  male 
relations  stood  a  very  few  personal  friends  of  Car- 
lyle, foremost  among  them  Anthony  Froude,  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall,  and  Mr.  Lecky.  With  exception  of 
these,  and  a  few  journalists,  they  who  gathered 
around  Carlyle's  grave  were  of  the  peasantry. 

What  did  these  lowly  ones  think  as  they  saw  their 
great  villager  laid  to  rest  ?    It  was  amid  profound 


THOMAS   CABLTLE.  149 

stillness:  there  was  no  ceremony;  no  word  broke 
that  silence  amid  which  the  prophet  of  Silence  was 
laid  to  rest.  But  those  young  workmen  may  have 
heard  still,  small  voices.  One  of  these  might  have 
come  from  the  family  tomb,  which  bears  this  in- 
scription : 

"  Erected  to  the  memory  of  Jannet  Carlyle,  spouse 
to  James  Carlyle,  mason  in  Ecclefechan,  who  died 
the  11th  September,  1792,  in  the  twenty-fifth  year 
of  her  age.  Also  Jannet  Carlyle,  daughter  to  James 
Carlyle  and  Margaret  Aitken:  she  died  at  Eccle- 
fechan, January  27,  1801,  aged  seventeen  months. 
Also  Margaret  their  daughter:  she  died  June  22, 
1830,  aged  twenty- seven.  And  the  above  James 
Carlyle,  born  at  Brownknowe  in  August,  1758,  died 
at  Scotsbrig  on  the  23d  January,  1832,  and  now  also 
rests  here.  And  here  also  now  rests  the  above  Mar- 
garet Aitken,  his  second  wife :  born  at  Whitestanes, 
Kirkmahoe,  in  September,  1771 ;  died  at  Scotsbrig 
on  Christmas  -  day,  1853.  She  brought  him  nine 
children,  whereof  four  sons  and  three  daughters  sur- 
vived, gratefully  reverent  of  such  a  father  and  such 
a  mother." 

The  last  sentence  was  added  by  Thomas  Carlyle. 
It  is  almost  the  only  touch  of  feeling  discoverable  in 
the  crowded  church -yard.  Some  of  the  old  slabs 
are  carved  with  skull  and  cross-bones,  but  their  in- 
scriptions are  merely  names  and  dates.    Some  of  the 


150  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

old  folk  of  this  region  are  still  in  the  cross -bone 
stratum  of  belief.  "What  a  pity  yon  man  Tom 
Caerl  was  an  infidel !"  one  was  heard  saying  to  an- 
other along  the  road.  The  two  shook  their  heads 
over  their  greatest  countryman.  What  notions  they 
had  of  fidelity  who  regarded  that  life  as  product  of 
infidelity  were  an  antiquarian  speculation.  The 
younger  peasantry  of  Ecclefechan,  reading  that  trib- 
ute on  the  tomb,  seeing  the  great  man  laid  beside  his 
lowly  parents,  bringing  there  whatever  lustre  sur- 
rounded his  name,  will  probably  reflect  that  a  man 
may  depart  from  the  creed  and  the  ways  of  his  peo- 
ple, might  become  famous  enough  to  refuse  decora- 
tions proffered  by  royalty,  yet  preserve  the  simplicity 
and  the  affections  of  his  early  life.  They  may  have 
been  impressed,  in  that  silence,  by  the  fact  that  here 
was  one  of  themselves — nay,  as  the  tolling  School 
Board  bell  might  remind  them,  with  less  advantages 
than  theirs — who  climbed  upward,  and  gained  the 
love  and  honor  of  the  world. 

It  is  said  that  the  name  of  this  village  means  the 
Ecclesia  of  St.  Fechan,  and  that  the  ancient  church 
stood  near  the  spot  where  Hoddam  kirk  now  stands. 
Beside  this  church  stood  the  school  to  which  Carlyle 
was  sent  as  a  child.  There  taught  the  poor  "  down- 
bent,  broken-hearted,  under-foot  martyr,"  the  teacher 
who  "  did  little  for  me  except  discover  that  he  could 
do  little."    At  any  rate,  the  poor  man  pronounced 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  151 

Thomas  a  genius,  fit  for  a  learned  profession.  In 
looking  after  the  site  of  the  old  school-house,  I  found 
at  Hoddam  an  old  man  who  had  been  a  pupil  there 
with  Thomas.  He  was  aged  and  shivering  as  he 
moved  slowly  amid  the  snow.  He  said,  "  Tom  al- 
ways sent  me  something  every  year — until  this  last 
winter ;  then  it  stopped." 

Then  it  stopped!  And  how  much  has  stopped 
besides  this  poor  brother's  little  winter  solace ! 
What  charities  to  hearts  and  minds  in  their  sore 
need,  what  brave  words  of  cheer  for  those  moving 
about  in  worlds  not  realized!  Graduation  from 
"  Carlyle  Close,"  now  a  shamble,  to  the  highest  in- 
tellectual distinction  of  the  nineteenth  century  im- 
plies the  realization  of  several  worlds  dim  to  others. 
Out  of  a  depth  like  this  his  voice  will  always  go 
forth,  and  to  it  the  deeps  will  always  answer.  The 
influence  of  Carlyle  w^ill  never  "  stop :"  wherever 
shams  are  falling,  his  sturdy  blows  will  still  be 
heard;  generations  of  the  free  will  recognize  that 
they  are  offspring  of  the  fire  in  his  heart,.burning 
all  fetters;  and  when  the  morning  stars  sing  to- 
gether of  dawning  days,  when  heroes  of  humanity 
replace  nobles  without  nobility  and  bauble-crow^ned 
kings,  his  voice,  so  long  a  burden  of  pain,  will  be 
heard  again  rising  into  song. 


THOMAS    CARI.YLE. 


Part  III. 
LETTEES  OF  CAKLYLE 

(WITH  ONE  FROM  EMERSON) 


7* 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE. 


The  following  extracts,  from  early  letters  of 
Thomas  Carljle,  require  a  few  words  of  explana- 
tion: 

In  the  year  1838  a  friend  kindly  lent  me  for  pe- 
rusal a  bundle  of  letters,  numbering  between  forty 
and  fifty,  written  by  Thomas  Carlyle,  addressed  to 
two  intimate  and  eridently  much-beloved  college 
friends.  The  earliest  date  of  these  letters  was  1814, 
when  the  writer  of  them  was  nineteen  years  of  age, 
and  the  latest  1824,  the  year  in  which  he  first  visited 
London.  These  two  friends  were  Thomas  Mitchell, 
afterwards  one  of  the  classical  masters  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Academy,  who  died  before  1838,  and  Thomas 
Murray,  afterwards  Dr.  Thomas  Murray,  author  of 
"  The  Literary  History  of  Galloway,"  a  lecturer,  in 
later  years,  on  political  economy,  and  subsequently 
partner  in  a  printing  firm  in  Edinburgh.  He  also 
is  dead. 

At  the  time  when  these  letters  were  lent  to  me  I 
had  just  been  reading  with  absorbing  interest  and 


156  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

admiration  that  marvellous  book — the  book  of  the 
century — "  The  French  Eevolution ;  a  History,"  by 
Thomas  Carlyle,  which  produced  a  deeper  and  more 
vivid  impression  on  my  mind  than  any  work  I  had 
ever  met  with  before.  His  early  articles  in  the 
Edinburgh  and  other  reviews  were  familiar  to  me, 
and  in  1837  I  had  received  from  Mr.  Emerson  a 
copy  of  the  first  edition,  published  at  Boston,  United 
States,  of  "Sartor  Resartus,"  reprinted  from  Fra- 
ser's  Mcbgazine  (prior  to  any  reprint  in  this  country). 
To  me,  therefore,  the  privilege  of  reading  this  batch 
of  letters  was  a  treat  of  no  common  kind.  With 
eager  delight  I  commenced  their  perusal  at  a  late 
hour,  and  never  ceased  until  I  had  finished  them  in 
the  early  hours  of  morning.  In  these  letters  Car- 
lyle poured  out  to  his  two  college-mates  his  inmost 
thoughts  and  feelings  with  unstinted  frankness.  He 
confided  to  them  his  aspirations,  his  failures,  his 
glooms  and  despondencies,  his  struggles,  hopes,  and 
disappointments,  while  bravely  battling  with  hard 
fortune  and  uncongenial  work,  and  as  yet  unable  to 
find  his  true  vocation.  There  are  passages  in  these 
letters  which  I  venture  to  say  are  not  surpassed  by 
anything  he  has  since  written ;  and  many  of  them 
afford  a  deeply  iuiteresting  insight  into  his  mind  and 
character.  So  much  was  I  struck  with  this  that  I 
ventured  to  make  copious  extracts,  sitting  up  through 
the  best  part  of  a  couple  of  nights  for  this  purpose. 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  157 

When  I  restored  tlie  precious  packet  to  the  kind 
friend  who  had  lent  it,  I  was  asked  whether  I  had 
made  any  transcripts.  While  confessing  my  trans- 
gression, if  transgression  it  could  be  called,  I  was 
allowed  to  retain  what  I  had  copied  on  the  distinct 
understanding  that  during  Carlyle's  lifetime  not  a 
line  should  be  allowed  to  get  into  print.  This 
pledge  I  have  strictly  kept.  A  few  years  ago  the 
matter  was  mentioned  to  the  venerable  vsriter  of 
the  letters  by  a  common  friend.  His  deliverance 
on  the  matter  was — a  hearty  laugh,  accompanied 
with  an  expression  of  surprise,  not  unmingled  with 
satisfaction,  that  there  was  any  one,  at  that  early 
time,  who  felt  so  much  interest  in  him  and  his  do- 
ings as  to  have  taken  the  trouble  to  preserve  these 
records  of  his  youthful  thoughts  and  feelings  and 
struggles. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  say  that  I  thought  it  due  to 
Mr.  Froude  to  submit  these  extracts  to  him,  and  to 
place  them  at  his  disposal  for  use  in  the  forthcoming 
"Life  and  Letters"  from  his  pen,  in  case  the  origi- 
nal letters  themselves  should  not  come  into  his  pos- 
session— at  the  same  time  asking  to  be  allowed  to 
make  them  public,  in  the  event  of  his  not  being  able 
to  use  the  whole  of  them,  from  the  abundance  of 
material  likely  to  be  in  his  hands.  I  need  not  say 
that  I  should  regret  the  withholding  of  a  single  sen- 
tence of  these  extracts,  they  are  so  characteristic 


168  THOMAS   CAELTLE. 

throughout.  Mr.  Froude  has  been  so  kind  as  to  say 
that  there  can  be  no  objection  to  their  publication, 
as  it  is  most  desirable  that  the  fullest  light  should 
be  thrown  on  every  period  of  Carlyle's  life. 

Alexander  Ieelaio). 
Inqlewood,  Bowdon,  Cheshire,  April  lith,  1881. 


LETTERS  OF  THOMAS  CARLYLE. 


TO  THOMAS   MITCHELL  AND   THOMAS   MUEKAY. 

1. 

*' August,  18U. 

"  But — O  Tom !  what  a  foolish,  flattering  creature 
thou  art !  To  talk  of  future  eminence  in  connection 
with  the  literary  history  of  the  nineteenth  century 
to  such  a  one  as  me !  Alas !  my  good  lad,  when  I 
and  all  my  fancies  and  reveries  and  speculations 
shall  have  been  swept  over  with  the  besom  of  obliv- 
ion, the  literary  history  of  no  century  will  feel  itself 
the  worse.  Yet  think  not,  because  I  talk  thus,  I  am 
careless  about  literary  fame.  JSTo,  Heaven  knows 
that  ever  since  I  have  been  able  to  form  a  wish,  the 
wish  of  being  known  has  been  the  foremost.  O 
Fortune !  thou  that  givest  unto  each  his  portion  in 
this  dirty  planet,  bestow  (if  it  shall  please  thee),  coro- 
nets and  crowns,  and  principalities  and  purses,  and 
pudding  and  power  upon  the  great  and  noble  and  fat 
ones  of  the  earth ;  grant  me  that,  with  a  heart  of  in- 
dependence, unyielding  to  thy  favors  and  unbending 
to  thy  frowns,  I  may  attain  to  literary  fame — and, 


160  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

though  starvation  be  my  lot,  I  will  smile  that  I  have 
not  been  born  a  king !  !  !  But,  alas !  m j  dear  Mur- 
ray, what  am  I,  or  what  are  you,  or  what  is  any  other 
poor  unfriended  stripling  in  the  ranks  of  learning? 

**  'Ah,  who  can  tell  how  hard  it  is  to  climb,'  etc.,  etc. 
4t  *  -x-  -Sf  *  -Sf 

"  The  more  I  know  her  and  her  species,  the  more 
heartily  I  despise  them.  It  is  strange,  but  it  is  true, 
that  by  a  continued  and  unvarying  exercise  of  affec- 
tation, those  creatures  in  the  end  entirely  lose  any 
kind  of  real  feeling  which  they  might  originally 
have  possessed.  Ignorant,  formal,  conceited,  their 
whole  life  is  that  of  an  automaton,  without  sense, 
and  almost  without  soul !  Once,  for  instance,  I  rec- 
ollect that  to  fill  up  one  of  those  awful  hiatus  in 
conversation  that  occur  at  times  in  spite  of  all  one's 

efforts  to  the  contrary,  and  to  entertain  Miss  M , 

I  took  up  a '  Tristram  Shandy,'  and  read  her  one  of 
the  very  best  jokes  within  the  boards  of  the  book. 

Ah-h-h-h !  sighed  Miss  M ,  and  put  on  a  look 

of  right  tender  melancholy  !  Now,  did  the  smallest 
glimmering  of  reason  appear  here?  But  I  have 
already  wasted  too  much  time  on  her  and  those  like 
her.     Heaven  be  their  comforter ! 

"I  regret  that  Jeffrey  should  bestow  so  much  of 
his  time  upon  politics,  and  I  rejoice  in  the  prospect 
(for  this  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  Peace)  that  in 
a  short  time  he  will  not  have  this  in  his  power.    He 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  161 

must  be  an  extraordinary  man.  No  subject,  however 
hackneyed,  but  he  has  the  wit  of  extracting  some 
new  thought  out  of  it.  The  introduction  to  the 
criticism  on  Byron  is,  in  my  opinion,  admirable — so 
acute,  so  philosophical;  none  but  a  man  of  keen 
penetration  and  deep  research  could  have  written 
such  a  thing.  Even  the  *  Present  State  of  Europe ' 
becomes  interesting  in  his  hands." 

2. 

"April,  1815, 

"  But  the  book  I  am  most  pleased  with  is  *  Cicero 
de  Finibus ' — not  that  there  is  much  new  discussion 
in  it,  but  his  manner  is  so  easy  and  elegant ;  and, 
besides,  there  is  such  a  charm  connected  with  attend- 
ing to  the  feelings  and  principles  of  a  man  over 
whom  ^  the  tide  of  years  has  rolled.'  We  are  enter- 
tained even  with  a  common  sentiment ;  and  when  we 
meet  with  a  truth  which  we  ourselves  had  previously 
discovered,  we  are  delighted  with  the  idea  that  our 
minds  are  similar  to  that  of  the  venerable  RomaUo" 

3. 

"Annan,  June  21, 1815. 
"  The  most  disagreeable  circumstance  in  a  tutor's 
life  is  his  want  of  society.     There  is  no  person  in 
the  family  of  equal  rank  with  him  except  the  gov- 
erness ;  and  as  the  aims  and  ends  of  her  and  him  are 


162  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

often  various,  and  tlieir  dispositions  heterogeneous, 
the  tutor  is,  for  the  most  part,  left  to  commune  with 
himself.  Such  a  situation,  in  this  view,  is  not  de- 
sirable ;  but  the  power  of  habit  is  unlimited,  and,  at 
any  rate,  this  state  has  its  advantages :  the  increase 
of  opportunities  it  affords  for  study  are  obvious; 
and  though  we  cannot  enjoy  the  spirit-stirring  crack 
of  our  jocund  cronies,  yet  if  we  can  spend  the  same 
time  with  Shakespeare  or  Addison,  or  Stewart,  we 
are  gainers  by  the  privation.  I  grant  we  cannot 
always  live  with  your  sages  and  your  demigods ;  but 
no  conversation  at  all  is  preferable  to  the  gossiping 
and  tittle-tattle  that  many  a  poor  wight  is  forced  to 
brook, — e.  g.,  your  humble  servant, — living  ^  Pelican 
in  the  Wilderness '  to  avoid  the  cant  and  slang  of 
the  coxcombs,  the  bloods,  the  bucks,  the  boobies, 
with  which  all  earth  is  filled." 


4. 

"Annan,  August  22,  1815. 

«  *  4f  -jf  jjjg  (Lord  Kaimes's)  works  are  generally  all 
an  awkward  compound  of  ingenuity  and  absurdity, 
and  in  this  volume  ["Essays  on  the  Principles  of 
Morality  "]  the  latter  quality,  it  appears  to  me,  con- 
siderably preponderates.  It  is  metaphysical — upon 
Belief,  Identity,  Necessity,  etc.  I  devoutly  wish  that 
no  friend  of  mine  may  ever  come  to  study  it,  unless 
he  wish  to  learn 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  163 

**  'To  weave  fine  cobwebs,  fit  for  skull 
That's  empty,  when  the  moon  is  full  ;* 

and  in  that  case  he  cannot  study  under  a  more  prop- 
er master.  *  *  *  [I  am]  becoming  daily  more  luke- 
warm about  the  preaching  business." 

5. 

"Annan,  December  5,  1815. 

"  *  *  *  I  had  a  sight  of  '  Waverley '  soon  after  I 
received  your  letter,  and  I  cannot  help  saying  that, 
in  my  opinion,  it  is  by  far  the  best  novel  that  has 
been  written  these  thirty  years — at  least,  that  I  know 
of.  Eben.  Cruickshanks,  mine  host  of  The  Seven 
Golden  Candlesticks,  and  Mr.  Gifted  Gilfillan,  are 
described  in  the  spirit  of  Smollett  or  Cervantes.  Who 
does  not  shed  a  tear  for  the  ardent  Yich  Ian  Yohr, 
and  the  unshaken  Evan  Dhu,  when,  perishing  amid 
the  shouts  of  an  English  mob,  they  refuse  to  swerve 
from  their  principles  ?  And  who  will  refuse  to  pity 
the  marble  Galium  Beg,  when,  hushed  in  the  strife  of 
death,  he  finishes  his  earthly  career  on  Clifton  Moor, 
far  from  the  blue  mountains  of  the  E^orth,  without 
one  friend  to  close  his  eyes?  'Tis  an  admirable 
performance.     Is  Scott  still  the  reputed  author  ?" 

[In  this  letter  Carlyle  mentions  reading  Euler's 
"Algebra,"  Addison's  "  Freeholder,"  Cuvier's  "The- 
ory of  the  Earth,"  Moli5re's  "  Comedies,"  the  month- 
ly reviews,  critical  journals,  etc.] 


164  THOMAS  CAELYLE. 


6. 

'' February  20,  1818. 

"After  an  arduous  struggle  with  sundry  historians 
of  great  and  small  renown,  I  sit  down  to  answer  the 
much-valued  epistle  of  my  friend.  Doubtless  you 
are  disposed  to  grumble  that  I  have  been  so  long  in 
doing  so ;  but  I  have  an  argument  in  store  for  you. 
To  state  the  proposition  logically :  This  letter,  I  con- 
ceive, must  either  amuse  yon  or  not.  If  it  amuse 
you,  then  certainly  you  cannot  be  so  unreasonable  as 
to  cavil  at  a  little  harmless  delay ;  and  if  it  do  not, 
you  will  rejoice  that  your  punishment  has  not  been 
sooner  inflicted.  Having  thus  briefly  fixed  you  be- 
tween the  horns  of  my  dilemma,  from  which,  I  flatter 
myself,  no  skill  will  suffice  to  extricate  you,  I  pro- 
ceed with  a  peaceful  and  fearless  mind. 

"*  *  *  I  continue  to  teach  (that  I  may  subsist 
thereby),  with  about  as  much  satisfaction  as  I  should 
beat  hemp,  if  such  were  my  vocation.  Excepting 
one  or  two  individuals,  I  have  little  society  that  I 
value  very  highly ;  but  books  are  a  ready  and  eflect- 
nal  resource.  May  blessings  be  upon  the  head  of 
Cadmus,  or  the  Phoenician,  or  whoever  it  was  that 
invented  books !  I  may  not  detain  you  with  the 
praises  of  an  art  that  carries  the  voice  of  man  to  the 
extremities  of  the  earth,  and  to  the  latest  genera- 
tions ;  but  it  is  lawful  for  the  solitary  wight  to  ex- 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  165 

press  the  love  he  feels  for  those  companions  so  stead- 
fast and  unpresnming,  that  go  or  come  without  re- 
luctance, and  that,  when  his  fellow-animals  are  proud 
or  stupid  or  peevish,  are  ever  ready  to  cheer  the  lan- 
guor of  his  soul,  and  gild  the  barrenness  of  life  with 
the  treasures  of  bygone  times.  Now  and  then  I 
cross  the  Firth  ;  but  these  expeditions  are  not  attend- 
ed with  much  enjoyment.  The  time  has  been  when 
I  would  have  stood  a-tiptoe  at  the  name  of  Edin- 
burgh; but  all  that  is  altered -now.  The  men  with 
whom  I  meet  are  mostly  preachers  and  students  in 
divinity.  These  persons  desire  not  to  understand 
Newton's  Philosophy,  but  to  obtain  a  well-plenished 
manse.  Their  ideas,  which  are  uttered  with  much 
vain  jangling,  and  generally  couched  in  a  recurring 
series  of  quips  and  most  slender  puns,  are  nearly  con- 
fined to  the  Church,  or  rather  Kirk-session  politics 
of  the  place ;  the  secret  habits,  freaks,  or  adventures 
of  the  clergy  or  professors ;  the  vacant  parishes  and 
their  presentees,  with  patrons,  tutors,  and  all  other 
appurtenances  of  the  tithe-pigtail.  Such  talk  is  very 
edifying  certainly ;  but  I  take  little  delight  in  it. 
My  theological  propensities  may  be  included  within 
small  compass ;  and  with  regard  to  witlings,  gibers, 
or  such  small  gear,  the  less  one  knows  of  them  it  is 
not  the  worse. 

"My  perusal  of  Smollet's  *  Continuation '  was  a 
much  harder  and  more  unprofitable  task.     Next  I 


166  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

read  Gibbon's  *  Decline  and  Fall,'  a  work  of  im- 
mense research  and  splendid  execution.  Embracing 
almost  all  the  civilized  world,  and  extending  from 
the  time  of  Trajan  to  the  taking  of  Constantinople 
by  Mahomet  II.,  in  1453,  it  connects  the  events  of 
ancient  with  those  of  modern  history.  Alternately 
delighted  and  offended  by  the  gorgeous  coloriug 
with  which  his  fancy  invests  the  rude  and  scanty 
materials  of  his  narrative,  sometimes  fatigued  by  the 
learning  of  his  notes,  occasionally  amused  by  their 
liveliness,  frequently  disgusted  by  their  obscenity, 
and  admiring  or  deploring  the  bitterness  of  his  skil- 
ful irony,  I  toiled  through  his  many  tomes  with  exem- 
plary patience.  His  style  is  exuberant,  sonorous,  and 
epigrammatic  to  a  degree  that  is  often  displeasing. 
He  yields  to  Hume  in  elegance  and  distinctness,  to 
Robertson  in  talent  for  general  disquisition ;  but  he 
excels  them  both  in  a  species  of  brief  shrewd  remark 
for  which  he  seems  to  have  taken  Tacitus  as  a  model, 
more  than  any  other  that  I  know  of.  The  whole 
historical  triumvirate  is  abundantly  destitute  of  vir- 
tuous feeling,  or  indeed  of  any  feeling  at  all.  I  won- 
der what  benefit  is  derived  from  reading  all  this  stuff. 
What  business  of  mine  is  it  though  Timur  Bey  erect- 
ed a  pyramid  of  80,000  human  skulls  in  the  val- 
ley of  Bagdad,  and  made  an  iron  cage  for  Bajazet? 
or  what  have  I  to  do  with  the  cold-blooded  savage 
policy  of  [illegible]  and  the  desolating  progress  either 


THOMAS    CAELYLE.  167 

of  Gengis  or  ITapoleon  ?  It  is  in  vain  to  tell  us  that 
our  knowledge  of  human  nature  is  increased  by  the 
operation.  Useful  knowledge  of  that  sort  is  acquired 
not  by  reading,  but  by  experience ;  and  with  regard 
to  political  advantages,  the  less  one  knows  of  them 
the  greater  will  be  his  delight  in  the  principles  of 
Lord  Castlereagh  and  Sid  mouth  with  their  [illegible] 
suspension,  holy  league,  and  salvation  of  Europe. 
Yet,  if  not  profit,  there  is  some  pleasure.  In  his- 
tory, at  all  events,  I  believe  we  must  not  apply  the 
cui  hono  too  rigorously.  It  may  be  enough  to  sanc- 
tion any  pursuit  that  it  gi'atifies  an  innocent,  and 
still  more  an  honorable,  propensity  of  the  human 
mind.  "When  I  look  back  upon  this  paragraph,  I  can- 
not but  admit  that  reviewing  is  a  very  beneficial  art. 
If  a  dull  man  take  it  into  his  head  to  write  either 
for  the  press  or  the  post-oflSce  without  materials  or  a 
dead  lift,  it  never  fails  to  extricate  him." 

7. 

•'3faj^  20,  1818. 

"  I  believe  it  to  be  a  truth  (and  though  no  creature 
believed  it,  it  would  continue  to  be  a  truth)  that  a 
man's  dignity,  in  the  great  system  of  which  he  forms 
a  part,  is  exactly  proportioned  to  his  moral  and  in- 
tellectual acquirements ;  and  I  find,  moreover,  that 
when  I  am  assaulted  by  those  feelings  of  discontent 
and  ferocity  which  solitude  at  all  times  tends  to  pro- 


168  THOMAS   OABLYLE. 

duce,  and  by  that  host  of  miserable  little  passions 
which  are  ever  and  anon  attempting  to  disturb  one's 
repose,  there  is  no  method  of  defeating  them  so  ef- 
fectual as  to  take  them  in  flank  by  a  zealous  course 
of  study.  I  believe  all  this,  but  my  practice  clashes 
with  my  creed. 

"  *  *  *  Sometimes,  indeed,  on  a  &ne  evening,  and 
when  I  have  quenched  my  thirst  with  large  potations 
of  Souchong,  I  say  to  myself.  Away  with  despond- 
ency !  Hast  thou  not  a  soul,  and  a  kind  of  under- 
standing in  it  ?  And  what  more  has  any  analyst  of 
them  all  ?  But  next  morning,  alas !  when  I  consider 
my  understanding,  how  coarse  yet  feeble  it  is,  and 
how  much  of  it  must  be  devoted  to  supply  the  vul- 
gar wants  of  life,  or  to  master  the  paltry  but  never- 
ending  vexations  with  which  all  creatures  are  be- 
leaguered, I  ask  how  it  is  possible  not  to  despond." 


''July,  1818. 

"  Be  assured,  I  have  not  forgotten  the  many  joy- 
ful days  which  long  ago  we  spent  together.  Sweet 
days  of  ignorance  and  airy  hope !  They  had  their 
troubles  too;  but  to  bear  them  there  was  a  light- 
heartedness  and  buoyancy  of  soul  which  the  sterner 
qualities  of  manhood,  and  the  hardier  buffetings  that 
require  them,  have  forever  forbidden  to  return.  I 
forbear  to  say  much  of  the  pursuits  which  have  en- 


THOMAS    CARLYLE.  169 

gaged  me.  They  would  little  interest  you,  I  fear. 
With  most  young  men,  I  have  had  dreams  of  intel- 
lectual greatness,  and  of  making  me  a  name  upon 
the  earth.  They  were  little  else  but  dreams.  To 
gain  renown  is  what  I  do  not  hope,  and  hardly  care 
for  in  the  present  state  of  my  feelings.  The  im- 
provement of  one's  mind,  indeed,  is  the  noblest  ob- 
ject which  can  occupy  any  reasonable  creature,  but 
the  attainment  of  it  requires  a  concurrence  of  cir- 
cumstances over  which  one  has  little  control.  I  now 
perceive  more  clearly  than  ever  that  any  man's  opin- 
ions depend  not  on  himself  so  much  as  on  the  age 
he  lives  in,  or  even  the  persons  with  whom  he  asso- 
ciates. If  his  mind  at  all  surpass  their  habits,  his 
aspirings  are  briefly  quenched  in  the  narcotic  atmos- 
phere that  surrounds  him.  He  forfeits  sympathy, 
and  provokes  hatred,  if  he  excel  but  a  little  the  dull 
standard  of  his  neighbors.  Difficulties  multiply  as 
he  proceeds,  and  none  but  chosen  souls  can  rise  to 
any  height  above  the  level  of  the  swinish  herd. 
Upon  this  principle,  I  could  tell  you  why  Socrates 
sacrificed  at  his  death  to  JEsculapius ;  why  Kepler 
wrote  his  ' Cosmographic  Harmony;'  and  why  Sir 
Thomas  More  believed  the  Pope  to  be  infallible. 
Nevertheless,  one  should  do  what  he  can.  I  need 
not  trouble  you  with  the  particulars  of  my  situation. 
My  prospects  are  not  extremely  brilliant  at  present. 
I  have  quitted  all  thoughts  of  the  Church,  for  many 


170  THOMA^  CAELYLE. 

reasons,  whicli  it  would  be  tedious,  perliaps  [illegi- 
ble], to  enumerate.  I  feel  no  love  (I  should  wish  to 
see  the  human  creature  that  feels  any  love)  for  the 
paltry  trade  I  follow ;  and  there  is  before  me  a  check- 
ered and  fluctuating  scene,  when  I  see  nothing  clear- 
ly, but  that  a  little  time  will  finish  it.  Yet  where- 
fore should  we  murmur  ?  A  share  of  evil,  greater  or 
less  (the  difference  of  shares  is  not  worth  mention- 
ing), is  the  unalterable  doom  of  mortals,  and  the 
mind  may  be  taught  to  abide  in  peace.  Complaint 
is  generally  despicable,  always  worse  than  unavail- 
ing. It  is  an  instructive  thing,  I  think,  to  observe 
Lord  Eyron,  surrounded  with  the  voluptuousness  of 
an  Italian  seraglio,  clianting  a  mournful  strain  over 
the  wretchedness  of  human  life — and  then  to  con- 
template the  poor  but  lofty-minded  Epictetus,  the 
slave  of  a  cruel  master  too ;  and  to  hear  him  lifting 
up  his  voice  to  far-distant  generations  in  the  unfor- 
gotten  words  of  his  'Encheiridion.'  But  a  truce  to 
moralizing ;  suffice  it,  with  our  Stoic,  to  suffer  and 
abstain." 

9. 

''November,  1818. 

"  From  the  conversation  which  we  had  in  the  Inn 
of  Basenthwaite,  etc.,  I  judge  you  are  as  unfit  as 
myself  for  the  study  of  tlieology,  as  they  arrogantly 
name  it.  Whatever  becomes  of  us,  never  let  us 
cease  to  behave  like  honest  men.  *  *  * 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  171 

"  I  have  tliouglit  much  and  long  of  the  irksome 
drudgery,  the  solitude,  the  gloom  of  my  condition. 
I  reasoned  thus :  These  things  may  be  endured,  if 
not  with  a  peaceful  heart,  at  least  with  a  serene 
countenance;  but  it  is  worth  while  to  inquire 
whether  the  profit  will  repay  the  pain  of  enduring 
them — a  scanty  and  precarious  livelihood  constitutes 
the  profit ;  you  know  me  and  can  form  some  judg- 
ment of  the  pain.  But  there  is  loss  as  well  as  pain. 
I  speak  not  of  the  loss  of  health;  but  the  destruc- 
tion of  benevolent  feeling,  that  searing  of  the  heart 
which  misery,  especially  of  a  petty  kind,  sooner  or 
later  will  never  fail  to  effect — is  a  more  frightful 
thing.  The  desire  which,  in  common  with  all  men, 
I  feel  for  conversation  and  social  intercourse  is,  I 
find,  enveloped  in  a  dense,  repulsive  atmosphere,  not 
of  vulgar  mauvaise-honte,  though  such  it  is  generally 
esteemed,  but  of  deeper  feelings,  which  I  partly  in- 
herit from  nature,  and  which  are  mostly  due  to  the 
undefined  station  I  have  hitherto  occupied  in  society. 
If  I  continue  a  schoolmaster,  I  fear  there  is  little 
reason  to  doubt  that  these  feelings  will  increase,  and 
at  last  drive  me  entirely  from  the  kindly  sympathies 
of  life,  to  brood  in  silence  over  the  bitterness  into 
which  my  friendly  propensities  must  be  changed. 
Where  then  would  be  my  comfort?  *  *  -^^  I  have 
thought  of  writing  for  booksellers.  Risum  teneas  ; 
for  at  times  I  am  serious  in  this  matter.     In  fine 


172  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

weather,  it  does  strike  me  that  there  are  in  this  head 
some  ideas,  a  few  disjecta  raemhra^  which  might  find 
admittance  into  some  one  of  the  many  publications 
of  the  day.  To  live  by  authorship  was  never  my  in- 
tention. It  is  said  not  to  be  common  at  present,  and 
happily  so;  for  if  we  may  credit  biographies,  the 
least  miserable  day  of  an  author's  life  is  generally 
the  last. 

"  ' sad  cure,  for  who  would  lose, 

Though  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being, 
Those  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity. 
To  perish  rather,  swallowed  up  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night. 
Devoid  of  sense  and  motion  ?' 

*  *  *  You  see,  my  boy,  that  my  prospects  are  not 
tlie  brightest  in  nature.  Yet  what  shall  we  say? 
Contentment,  that  little  -  practised  virtue,  has  been 
inculcated  by  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage — and  by 
each  person  from  a  different  principle.  Do  not  fear 
that  I  shall  read  you  a  homily  on  that  hackneyed 
theme.  Simply  I  wish  to  tell  you  that  in  days  of 
darkness — for  there  are  days  when  my  support  (pride, 
or  whatever  it  is)  has  enough  to  do — I  find  it  useful 
to  remember  that  Cleanthes  whose  [illegible]  may 
last  yet  other  two  thousand  years,  never  murmured 
when  he  labored  by  night,  as  a  street-porter,  that  he 
might  hear  the  lectures  of  Zeno  by  day ;  and  that 
Epictetus,  the  ill-used  slave  of  a  cruel  tyrant's  as 
wretched  minion,  wrote  that  '  Encheiridion '  which 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  173 

may  fortify  the  souls  of  the  latest  inhabitant  of  the 
earth.  Besides,  though  neither  of  these  men  had 
adorned  their  species,  it  is  morally  certain  that  our 
earthly  joys  or  griefs  can  last  but  for  a  few  brief 
years;  and  though  the  latter  were  eternal,  complaint 
and  despondency  could  neither  mitigate  their  inten- 
sity nor  shorten  their  duration.  Therefore,  my  duty 
and  that  of  every  young  man  on  that  point  is  clear 
as  light  itself." 

10. 

''January  7,  1819. 

"  *  *  *  I  wish  from  my  soul  some  less  laborious 
mode  of  friendly  intercourse  could  be  devised  than 
letter-writing.  Much  may  be  done  in  the  flight  of 
ages ;  I  despair  of  steam  indeed,  notwithstanding  its 
felicitous  application  to  many  useful  purposes,  but 
who  can  limit  the  undiscovered  agent  with  which 
knowledge  is  yet  to  enrich  philanthropy  ?  Charm- 
ing prospect  for  the  dull,  above  all,  the  solitary  dull, 
of  future  times ;  small  comfort  for  us,  however,  who, 
in  no  great  fraction  of  one  age,  shall  need  to  care 
nothing  about  the  matter." 

11. 

"Edinburgh,  February,  1819. 

"*  *  *  I  shall  be  much  gratified  to  get  intelli- 
gence of  your  fortunes.  I  might  send  you  some 
details  about  my  own,  but  they  have  nowise  altered 


174  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

since  I  wrote  last,  and  have  therefore  a  most  indefi- 
nite and  wavering  aspect.  Your  road  through  life 
seems  to  be  separating  from  mine — perhaps  never 
more  to  meet.  During  the  five  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  we  lived  together,  each  must  have  ac- 
quired principles  and  predilections  in  which  the 
other  cannot  be  expected  to  participate.  Yet  I 
trust,  for  the  sake  of  both,  that  neither  of  us  will 
cease  to  remember  with  a  meek  and  kindly  feeling 
that  pleasant  period  which  we  spent  together.  Betide 
us  what  will,  whenever  we  meet  again  may  each  see 
in  the  friend  of  his  youth  a  man  unsullied  by  any- 
thing that  is  paltry  or  degrading. 

"Although  well  aware  of  the  propensity  which 
exists  in  men  to  speak  more  about  themselves  than 
others  care  for  hearing,  yet  as  you  have  hitherto 
been  the  participator  of  all  my  schemes,  I  venture 
to  solicit  your  forbearance  and  advice  at  a  time  when 
I  need  them  as  much,  perhaps,  as  I  have  ever  done. 

"  *  *  *  The  source  of  that  considerable  quantity 
of  comfort  which  1  enjoy  in  these  circumstances  is 
twofold.  First,  there  is  the  hope  of  better  days, 
which  I  am  not  yet  old  or  worn  out  enough  to  have 
quite  laid  aside. 

"  This  cheerful  feeling  is  combined  with  a  portion 
of  the  universal  qualit}^  which  we  ourselves  name 
firmness,  others  obstinacy ;  the  quality  which  I  sup- 
pose to  be  the  fulcrum  of  all  Stoical  philosophy,  and 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  175 

which,  when  the  charmer  Hope  has  utterly  forsaken 
us,  may  afford  a  grim  support  in  the  extreme  of 
wretchedness.  But  there  are  other  emotions  which 
at  times  arise.  AYhen  in  my  solitary  walks  round 
the  Meadows  or  Carlton  Hill,  my  mind  escapes  from 
the  smoke  and  tarnish  of  those  unfortunate  persons 
with  whom  it  is  too  much  my  fortune  to  associate ; 
emotions  which,  if  less  fleeting,  might  constitute  the 
principle  of  action,  at  once  rational  and  powerful. 
It  is  difficult  to  speak  upon  these  subjects  without 
being  ridiculous,  if  not  hypocritical.  Besides,  the 
principles  to  which  I  allude,  being  little  else  than  a 
more  intense  perception  of  certain  truths  universally 
acknowledged,  to  translate  them  into  language  would 
disgrace  them  to  the  rank  of  truisms.  Therefore 
unwillingly  I  leave  you  to  conjecture.  It  is  proba- 
ble, however,  that  your  good-natured  imagination 
might  lead  you  to  overrate  my  resources  if  I  neg- 
lected to  inform  you  that,  upon  the  whole,  my  mind 
is  far  from  philosophical  composure.  The  vicissi- 
tudes of  our  opinions  do  not  happen  with  the  celerity 
or  distinctness  of  an  astronomical  phenomenon ;  but 
it  is  evident  that  my  mind  at  the  present  is  under- 
going sundry  alterations.  When  I  review  my  past 
conduct,  it  seems  to  have  been  guided  by  narrow  or 
defective  views,  and  (worst  of  all)  by  lurking,  deeply 
lurking  affectation.  I  could  have  defended  these 
views  by  the  most  paramount  logic ;  but  what  logic 


176  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

can  withstand  experience?  This  is  not  the  first,  and 
if  I  live  long  it  will  not  be  the  last,  of  mj  revolutions. 
Thus,  mint  unda  supervenit  undam,  error  succeeds  to 
error ;  and  thus  while  I  seek  a  rule  of  life,  life  itself 
is  fast  flying  away.  At  the  last,  perhaps,  my  creed 
may  be  found  too  nearly  to  resemble  the  memorable 
Tristrapsedia  of  Walter  Shandy,  of  which  the  minute 
and  indubitable  directions  for  Tristram's  baby-clothes 
were  finished  when  Tristram  was  in  breeches.  But 
I  forget  the  aphorism  with  which  I  began  my  letter. 
Here,  at  least,  let  me  conclude  this  long-winded  ac- 
count of  my  own  affairs,  and  request  from  you  as 
particular  a  one  of  your  own.  We  cannot  help  one 
another,  my  friend ;  but  mutual  advice  and  encour- 
agement may  easily  be  given  and  thankfully  re- 
ceived. Will  you  go  to  Liverpool,  or  Bristol,  or 
any  whither,  and  institute  a  classico- mathematical 
academy?  Or  what  say  you  to  that  asylum,  or 
rather  hiding-place,  of  poverty  and  discontent,  Amer- 
ica ?  To  be  fabricating  Lock  N^o.  8  among  the  passes 
of  the  Alleghany !" 

[In  the  letter  from  which  the  above  extract  is 
taken,  Carlyle  mentions  that  he  is  attempting  to 
learn  German.] 

12. 
*' Edinburgh,  15  Carnegie  Street,  April,  1819. 

"The  despicable  wretchedness  of  teaching  can  be 
known  only  to  those  who  have  tried  it  and  to  Him 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  177 

who  made  the  heart  and  knows  it  all.  One  meets 
with  few  spectacles  more  afflicting  than  that  of  a 
young  man  with  a  free  spirit,  with  impetuous  though 
honorable  feelings,  condemned  to  waste  the  flower 
of  his  life  in  such  a  calling;  to  fade  in  it  by  slow 
and  sure  corrosion  of  discontent ;  and,  at  last,  ob- 
scurely and  unprofitably  to  leave,  with  an  indignant 
joy,  the  miseries  of  a  world  which  his  talents  might 
have  illustrated  and  his  virtues  adorned.  Such  things 
have  been  and  will  be.  But  surely  in  that  better 
life  which  good  men  dream  of,  the  spirit  of  a  Kepler 
or  a  Milton  will  find  a  more  propitious  destiny. 

"  *  *  *  I  long  to  hear  that  you  have  comfortably 
adjusted  your  establishment  in  the  Island  of  Man.  In 
the  event  of  your  going  thither,  you  have  only  to  ex- 
ert your  abilities  with  the  zeal  and  prudence  of  which 
you  are  capable;  and  I  am  convinced  your  hope 
of  respectability  and  contentment  will  not  be  disap- 
pointed. Probably  you  are  disposed  to  agree  with 
the  Pariah  of  Saint-Pierre,  in  thinking  that  "  there 
is  no  real  happiness  without  a  good  wife ;"  and  it 
may  be  you  are  right.  Let  me  advise  you,  however 
(you  need  not  frown  ;  I  am  not  going  to  jest,  but  to 
give  most  serious  and  weighty  counsel),  to  examine 
and  re-examine  the  circumstances  before  taking  any 
step  in  consequence  of  this  persuasion.  A  calendar 
month  destroys  the  illusions  of  the  imagination ;  and 
if  judgment  be  not  interested,  the  rest  of  one's  life 

8* 


178  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

is  the  very  gall  of  bitterness.  A  narrow  income,  too ! 
It  would  break  your  heart — at  least,  I  hope  it  would 
— to  see  the  helplessness  of  an  amiable  woman  (grant- 
ing that  your  choice  was  fortunate)  exposed  to  the 
hard  [illegible]  from  which  you  had  undertaken,  but 
were  unable,  to  defend  her.  Of  a  truth,  such  a  thing 
should  give  us  pause.  But  I  doubt  not  your  good 
sense  will  render  this  advice  superfluous.  Your 
good  -  nature  will  pardon  it,  considering  the  motive 
which  has  called  it  forth.  *  *  ^  As  to  my  own 
projects,  I  am  sorry,  on  several  accounts,  that  I  can 
give  no  satisfactory  reply  to  your  friendly  inquiries. 
A  good  portion  of  my  life  is  already  mingled  with  the 
past  eternity ;  and  for  the  future — it  is  a  dim  scene, 
on  which  my  eyes  are  fixed  as  calmly  and  intensely 
as  possible — to  no  purpose.  The  probability  of  my 
doing  any  service,  in  my  day  and  generation,  is  cer- 
tainly not  very  strong.  Friends  are  necessary,  and 
I  have  few  friends,  and  most  of  those  few  have  their 
own  concerns  to  mind.  Health  also  is  requisite,  but 
my  late  precious  trade  and  indolent  habits  (it  must 
be  owned)  have  left  me  little  of  that  to  boast  of." 

13. 

*'J%,  1819. 

"It  [first  volume  of  Kousseau's  "  Confessions"]  is 
perhaps  the  most  remarkable  tome  I  ever  read.  Ex- 
cept for  its  occasional  obscenity,  I  might  wish  to  see 


THOMAS    CARLYLE.  179 

the  remainder  of  the  book,  to  trj,  if  possible,  to  con- 
nect the  character  of  Jean  Jacques  with  my  previous 
ideas  of  human  nature.  To  say  he  is  mad  were  to 
cut  the  knot  without  loosing  it.  At  any  rate,  what 
could  have  induced  any  mortal,  mad  or  wise,  to  rec- 
ollect and  delineate  such  a  tissue  of  vulgar  debauch- 
ery, false-heartedness,  and  misery  is  quite  beyond  my 
comprehension.  If  we  regret  our  exclusion  from 
that  Gallic  constellation,  which  has  set  and  found  no 
successor  to  its  brilliancy,  the  'Memoirs'  of  Marmon- 
tel  or  Kousseau's  '  Confessions '  should  teach  a  vir- 
tuous Briton  to  be  content  with  the  dull  sobriety  of 
his  native  country." 

14. 

"December,  1819. 

"  Yet,  in  general,  I  set  a  stubborn  front  to  the 
storm,  live  in  hope  of  better  days.  In  wet  weather, 
indeed,  when  the  digestive  apparatus  refuses  to  per- 
form its  functions,  my  world  is  sometimes  black 
enough.    Melancholy  remembrances, 

"  'Shades  of  departed  joys  around  me  rise, 
With  many  a  face  that  smiles  on  me  no  more, 
With  many  a  voice  that  thrills  of  transport  gave, 
Now  silent  as  the  grass  that  tufts  their  grave ;' 

and  dark  anticipations  of  the  coming  time — such 
are  the  fruits  of  solitude  and  want  of  settled  occu- 
pation.    But  this,  also,  is  vanity." 


180  THOMAS   CARLYLE, 


15. 

''March,  1820. 

"  The  thought  that  one's  best  days  are  hurrying 
darkly  and  uselessly  away  is  yet  more  [illegible].     It 

is  vain  to  deny  it,  my  friend.    I  am  altogether  an 

creature.  Timid,  yet  not  humble ;  weak,  yet  ^thu- 
siastic,  nature  and  education  have  rendered  me  en- 
tirely unfit  to  force  my  way  among  the  thick-skinned 
inhabitants  of  this  planet.  Law,  I  fear,  must  be  re- 
nounced ;  it  is  a  shapeless  mass  of  absurdity  and  chi- 
cane ;  and  the  ten  years  which  a  barrister  commonly 
spends  in  painful  idleness  before  arriving  at  employ- 
ment is  more  than  my  physical  and  moral  frame 
could  endure.  Teaching  school  is  but  another  word 
for  sure  and  not  very  slow  destruction ;  and  as  to  com- 
piling the  wretched  lives  of  Montesquieu,  Montaigne, 
Montagu,  etc.,  for  Dr.  Brewster,  the  remuneration 
will  hardly  sustain  life.  But  I  touch  a  string  which 
generally  yields  a  tedious  sound  to  any  but  the  ope- 
rator. I  know  you  are  not  indifferent  to  the  matter, 
but  I  would  not  tire  you  with  it.  The  fate  of  one 
man  is  a  mighty  small  concern  in  the  grand  whole, 
in  this  best  of  all  possible  worlds.  Let  us  quit  the 
subject  with  just  one  observation  more,  which  I 
throw  out  for  your  benefit,  should  you  ever  come  to 
need  such  an  advice.  It  is  to  keep  the  profession 
you  have  adopted,  if  it  be  at  all  tolerable.    A  young 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  181 

man  who  goes  forth  into  the  world  to  seek  his  fort- 
une with  those  lofty  ideas  of  honor  and  uprightness 
which  a  studious,  secluded  life  naturally  begets  will, 
in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  the  hundred,  if  friends 
and  other  aids  are  wanting,  fall  into  the  sere,  the 
yellow  leaf ;  and,  if  he  quit  not  his  integrity,  end  a 
wretched,  though  happily  a  short,  career  in  misery 
and  failure. 

"  I  was  glad  to  learn  that  you  had  finished  the  pe- 
rusal of  Homer.  Certainly  tlie  blind  bard  is  little 
obliged  by  your  opinion  of  him.  I  believe,  however. 
Candor  is,  and  that  is  better.  If  from  the  admira- 
tion felt  by  Casaubon,  Scaliger,  and  Co.,  and  still  more 
by  the  crowds  that  blindly  follow  them,  we  could 
subtract  that  portion  which  originates  in  the  as  hol- 
low admiration  of  others  for  the  same  object;  and 
if,  further,  all  affectation  could  be  banished,  I  fear  a 
very  inconsiderable  item  would  remain.  In  fact, 
Maeonides  has  had  his  day — at  least  the  better  part 
of  it ;  the  noon  was  five-and-twenty  centuries  ago ; 
the  twilight  (for  he  set  in  1453)  may  last  for  five-and- 
twenty  other  centuries;  but  it,  too,  must  terminate. 
lN"othing  that  we  know  of  can  last  forever.  The 
very  mountains  are  silently  wasting  away ;  and  long 
before  eternity  is  done  Mont  Blanc  might  cease  to 
be  the  pinnacle  of  Europe,  and  Chimborazo  lie  under 
the  Pacific.  Philosophy  and  literature  have  a  far 
shorter  date.     Error  in  the  first  succeeds  to  error,  as 


182  THOMAS   CAELTLE. 

wave  to  wave.  Plato  obscured  the  fame  of  Pythag- 
oras ;  Ciidworth  and  Kant,  of  Plato ;  the  Stagyrite 
and  his  idle  spawn  have  been  swept  away  by  Lord 
Bacon,  himself  to  be  swept  away  in  his  turn.  Even 
in  the  narrow  dominions  of  truth  the  continuance 
of  renown  is  not  more  durable  ;  each  succeeding  ob- 
server from  a  higher  vantage-ground  compresses  the 
labors  of  his  forerunner;  and  as  the  ^Principia'  of 
IN'ewton  is  already  swallowed  up  in  the '  Mecanique 
Celeste '  of  Laplace,  so  likewise  will  it  fare  with  the 
present  Lord  of  the  Ascendant.  Poetry,  they  tell 
us,  escapes  the  general  doom ;  but,  even  without  the 
aid  of  revolutions  or  deluges,  it  cannot  always  escape. 
The  ideas  about  which  it  is  conversant  must  differ 
in  every  different  age  and  country.  The  poetry  of 
a  Choctaw,  I  imagine,  would  turn  chiefly  on  the  pains 
of  hunger,  and  the  pleasure  of  catching  bears  or 
scalping  Chickasaws.  In  like  manner,  though  some 
of  the  affections  which  Homer  delineates  are  coexist- 
ent with  the  race,  yet  in  the  progress  of  refinement 
(or  change)  his  mode  of  delineating  them  will  appear 
trivial  or  disgusting,  and  the  very  twilight  of  his 
fame  will  have  an  end.  Thus  all  things  are  dying, 
my  friend — only  ourselves  die  faster !  Man  !  if  I 
had  but  £200  a  year,  a  beautiful  little  house  in  some 
laughing  valley,  three  or  four  pure-spirited  mortals 
who  would  love  me  and  be  loved  again,  together  with 
a  handsome  library  and — a  great  genius,  I  would  in- 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  183 

vestigate  the  hallucinations  that  connect  themselves 
with  such  ideas.  At  present  I  must  revisit  this 
nether  sphere." 

16. 

"Mainhill,  near  Ecclefechan,  August  4, 1820. 

"  *  *  *  How  could  it  have  got  into  your  head  that 
you  stood  low  in  my  estimation  ?  The  words  that 
conveyed  such  an  impression  must  indeed  have  been 
ill-chosen  whenever  they  w^ere  used.  Graglia's  Dic- 
tionary and  the  rest  came  safely  as  well  as  time- 
ously  to  hand ;  and  though  the  articles  had  been 
entirely  destroyed,  do  you  think  I  would  have  quar- 
relled with  you  about  so  trifling  an  affair  ?  It  has 
been  my  chance  to  meet  with  some  whose  sympathy 
has  brightened,  at  times,  the  gloomy  labyrinth  of 
life ;  but  not  to  meet  so  many  that  I  could  sacrifice 
them  upon  grounds  like  this.  I  pray  you  put  away 
such  thoughts  utterly.  Our  paths  may  lead  us  far 
asunder,  but  the  place  will  be  distant,  the  period  re- 
mote, when  I  forget  the  calmness  and  happiness  of 
bygone  days,  or  the  amiable  qualities  that  contributed 
to  make  them  calm  and  happy.  I  hope  we  shall 
meet  together  often,  after  all,  when  the  sun  is  shining 
more  brightly  over  us  both ;  and  I  feel  a  sort  of  con- 
fidence that  neither  of  us  will  allow  his  spirit  to  be 
sullied  or  debased,  though  disastrous  twilight  should 
still  overcast  both  the  present  and  the  future. 

u  *  *  *  -^y  liealth  has  been  indifferent  for  the 


184  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

last  three  years — seldom  very  bad ;  I  think  it  is  im- 
proving. My  spirits,  of  course,  have  been  various ; 
my  prospects  are  a  shadowy  void.  Yet  why  should 
a  living  man  complain  ?  The  struggle  is  brief ;  there 
are  short  yet  most  sweet  pauses  in  it ;  something  of 
pride,  too,  at  times,  will  gild  its  humble  endurance ; 
and  there  is  all  eternity  to  rest  in. 

"  I  could  tell  you  much  about  the  new  Heaven  and 
new  Earth  which  a  slight  study  of  German  literature 
has  revealed  to  me ;  but  room  fails  me,  and  time — 
while  *  twilight  gray '  and  certain  phenomena  wdthin 
give  w^arning  that  I  should  mount  the  sheltie  and 
take  my  evening  ride." 

IT. 

''March,  1821. 

u  *  «  *  J3^|^  toleration,  man !  Toleration  is  all  I 
ask,  and  all  I  am  ready  to  give.  Do  you  take  your 
Lipsius,  your  Crombie,  your  Schweighauser,  and  let 
me  be  doing  with  Lake  Poets,  Mystics,  or  any  trash 
I  can  fall  in  with.  Why  should  we  not  cast  an  eye 
of  cheering,  give  a  voice  of  welcome  to  each  other  as 
our  paths  become  mutually  visible,  though  they  are 
no  longer  one?  *  *  ^  The  most  enviable  thing,  I 
often  think,  in  all  the  world  must  be  the  soundest 
of  the  Seven  Sleepers ;  for  he  reposes  deeply  in  his 
corner,  and  to  him  the  tragi-comedy  of  life  is  as 
painless  as  it  is  paltry. 


THOMAS  CARLYLE.  185 

"  ^  ^  *  I  have  tried  about  twenty  plans  tliis  win- 
ter in  the  way  of  authorship ;  they  have  all  failed.  I 
have  about  twenty  more  to  try ;  and  if  it  does  but 
please  the  Director  of  all  things  to  continue  the  mod- 
erate share  of  health  now  restored  to  me,  I  will  make 
the  doors  of  human  society  fly  open  before  me  yet, 
notwithstanding.  '^^ jpetards  will  not  burst,  or  make 
only  noise  when  they  do.  I  must  mix  them  better, 
plant  them  more  judiciously;  they  shall  burst  and 
do  execution,  too. 

"  *  *  *  I  would  not  wish  any  one  to  launch,  as  I 
was  forced  to  do,  upon  the  roaring  deep,  so  long  as 
he  can  stay  ashore.  For  me,  the  surges  and  the 
storm  are  round  txx)^  skifE ;  yet  I  must  on — on  lest 
biscuit  fail  me,  ere  I  reach  the  trade-wind  and  sail 
with  others." 

18. 

''April,  1821. 

«*  *  *  I  am  moving  on,  weary  and  heavy-laden, 
with  very  fickle  health,  and  many  discomforts — still 
looking  forward  to  the  future  (brave  future !)  for  all 
the  accommodation  and  enjoyment  that  render  life 
an  object  of  desire.  Then  shall  I  no  longer  play  a 
candle-snuffer's  part  in  the  great  drama ;  or  if  I  do, 
my  salary  will  be  raised ;  then  shall — which  you  see 
is  just  use  and  wont." 


186  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 


19. 

''October,  1821. 

"  *  *  *  Mj  own  experience  of  these  things  is  tri- 
fling and  unfavorable ;  yet  I  do  not  reckon  the  prob- 
lem of  succeeding  in  a  school,  and  learning  to  remedy 
and  endure  all  its  grievances,  one  of  extreme  diffi- 
culty. First,  as  in  every  undertaking,  it  is  necessary, 
of  course,  that  you  wish  to  succeed ;  that  you  deter- 
mine firmly  to  let  nothing  break  your  equanimity, 
that  you  '  lay  aside  every  weight ' — your  philosophi- 
cal projects,  your  shyness  of  manner  (if  you  are 
cursed  with  that  quality),  your  jealous  sense  of  inde- 
pendence— everything,  in  short,  that  circumstances 
may  point  out  as  detrimental  to  your  interest  with 
the  people ;  and  then,  being  thus  balanced  and  set 
in  motion,  your  sole  after-duty  is  to  '  run  with  pa- 
tience;' you  will  reach  the  goal  undoubtedly.  Pub- 
lic favor  in  some  sense  is  requisite  for  all  men,  but  a 
teacher  ought  constantly  to  bear  in  mind  that  it  is 
life  and  breath  to  him.  Hence,  in  comparison  with 
it  nothing  should  be  dear  to  him ;  he  must  be  meek 
and  kindly,  and  soft  of  speech  to  every  one,  how 
absurd  or  offensive  soever.  To  the  same  object  he 
must  also  frequently  sacrifice  the  real  progress  of 
his  pupils,  if  it  cannot  be  gained  without  affecting 
their  peace  of  mind.  The  advantages  of  great  learn- 
ing are  so  vague  and  distant,  the  miseries  of  constant 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  187 

whining  are  so  immediate  and  manifest,  that  not 
one  parent  in  a  thousand  can  take  the  former  in  ex- 
cliange  for  the  latter,  with  patience — not  to  speak  of 
thankfuhiess.  For  the  same  reason,  he  must  (if  the 
fashion  of  the  place  require  it)  go  about  and  visit  his 
employers;  he  must  cook  them  and  court  them  by 
every  innocent  mode  which  the  ever-varying  posture 
of  circumstances  will  suggest  to  a  mind  on  the  out- 
look for  them.  This  seems  poor  philosophy,  but  it 
is  true.  The  most  diligent  fidelity  in  discharging 
your  duties  will  not  serve  you — by  itself.  Never 
forget  this — it  is  mathematically  certain.  If  men 
were  angels,  or  even  purely  intellectual  beings,  hav- 
ing judgment,  but  no  vanity  or  other  passion,  it 
might  be  different ;  but  as  it  is,  the  case  becomes 
much  more  complicated.  Few,  very  few,  had  not 
rather  be  cheated  than  despised;  and  even  in  the 
common  walks  of  life,  probity  is  often  left  to  rot, 
without  so  much  as  being  praised.  It  has  the  alget 
without  the  laudatur,  which  is  a  most  sorry  busi- 
ness, doubtless.     I  have  written  down  all  this,  my 

dear ,  not  because  I  thought  you  wanted  it ;  on 

the  contrary,  I  imagine  your  talents  and  manners 
and  temper  promise  you  a  distinguished  success; 
but  because  I  thought  the  fruit  of  my  painful  expe- 
rience might  be  worth  something  to  you,  and  that 
something,  however  small,  I  was  anxious  to  offer  you. 
Take  it,  and  call  it  the  widow's  mite^  if  you  like.  It 
is  from  your  friend,  T.  Caklyle." 


188  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 


''April,  1822. 

"  *  *  ^  It  is  a  great  truth  which  Gibbon  sets  forth 
somewhere,  that  letters  are  like  alms,  in  one  respect — 
symbols  of  friendship,  as  alms  are  of  charity,  though 
it  is  well  known  that  the  thing  signified  may  exist 
in  great  activity  without  the  symbol,  in  both  cases. 
At  all  events,  I  hope  you  need  no  persuasion  that  I 
feel  always  great  pleasure  in  writing  to  you ;  not 
only  as  to  a  man  whose  talents  and  principle  I  re- 
spect, but  also  as  to  one  with  whom  some  of  the 
most  picturesque  years  of  my  life  are  inseparably 
connected  in  memory ;  whose  name  recalls  to  me  a 
thousand  images  of  the  past,  a  thousand  passages  and 
half-forgotten  moods  of  mind,  which  were  not  with- 
out a  degree  of  pleasure  while  present,  and  which 
distance  is  every  day  rendering  dearer,  and  covering 
with  a  softer  and  purer  color.  How  many  sheets 
have  I  scrawled  to  you,  how  many  consultations  and 
merrymakings  and  loungings  have  we  had  together ! 
How  many  sage  purposes  and  speculations  have  we 
formed  by  each  other's  counsel — how  contentedly, 
though  neither  of  us  knew  the  right  hand  from  the 
left !  I  declare  I  shall  always  think  of  those  days 
with  a  certain  melancholy  pleasure,  and  keep  antici- 
pating the  nights  when  we  (old  gray-heads,  covered 
with  honor  as  with  years)  shall  yet  sit  by  each  other's 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  189 

hearth,  and  recount  these  achievements,  and  forget, 
in  recollecting  them,  all  the  weakness  and  the  weari- 
ness and  cares  and  coldnesses  of  age.  ^  Chateaux  en 
Espagne,'  you  say.  "No  matter,  they  look  very  hospi- 
table, and  one  loves  to  gaze  upon  them. 

"  *  ^  *  One  thing  I  am  sure  of,  and  congratulate 
you  upon :  it  is  the  advantage  you  possess  over  me 
in  having  a  fixed  object  in  life ;  a  kind  of  chart  of 
the  course  you  are  to  follow,  and  the  opportunity  not 
only  of  enjoying  all  the  pleasures  which  this  affords 
in  the  meantime,  but  likewise  of  increasing  your  ex- 
perience, and  thus  at  once,  by  the  power  of  habit 
and  of  new  skill  in  discharging  your  duties,  increas- 
ing and  accumulating  more  and  more  your  means 
of  happiness  and  usefulness.  There  is  an  immense 
blessing  in  your  lot.  I  advise  you  (for  two  good  rea- 
sons) to  beware  of  letting  it  go.  J^one  but  a  wan- 
dering, restless  pilgrim,  who  has  travelled  long  and 
advanced  little,  anxious  to  proceed  on  his  destined 
journey,  but  perpetually  missing  or  changing  his 
path,  can  tell  you  how  fine  a  thing  it  is  to  have  a 
beaten  turnpike  for  your  accommodation.  Better  to 
keep  it,  almost  however  miry  and  rugged,  than  to 
spring  the  hedge,  and  so  lose  yourself  among  foot- 
paths." 


190  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 


21. 

''December,  1822. 

"  I  need  not  advise  you  to  keep  a  strict  watch  over 
your  health ;  you  have  already  suffered  too  severely 
to  need  any  such  caution.  The  whole  earth  has  no 
blessing  within  its  circuit  worthy  to  be  named  along 
with  health.  The  loss  of  it  I  reckon  the  very  dear- 
est item  in  the  lot  of  man.  I  often  think  I  could 
snap  my  fingers  in  the  face  of  everytliing,  if  it  were 
not  for  this.  Pandora's  box  was  but  a  toy  compared 
with  biliousness,  or  any  other  fundamental  bodily 
disorder.  Watch!  watch!  and  think  Tnens  sana  in 
corj^ore  sano  is  the  whole  concern. 

"  They  [the  probationers  of  the  Scottish  Kirk]  are 
getting  into  kirks  gradually,  or  lingering  on  the 
muddy  shore  of  ^Private  Teaching,'  to  see  if  any 
Charon  will  waft  them  across  the  Styx  of  Patronage 
into  the  Elysium  of  teinds  and  glebe.  Success  at- 
tend them  all,  poor  fellows !  They  are  cruising  in 
one  small  sound,  as  it  were,  of  the  great  ocean  of 
life;  their  trade  is  harmless,  their  vessels  leaky;  it 
will  be  hard  if  they  altogether  fail.  *  *  *  I  sit  here 
and  read  all  the  morning,  or  write ;  regularly  burn- 
ing everything  I  write.  It  is  a  hard  matter  that 
one's  thoughts  should  be  so  poor  and  scanty,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  power  of  uttering  them  so  difficult 
to  acquire. 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  191 

*'*  *  *  Have  you  seen  the  Liberal f  It  is  a 
most  happy  performance.  Byron  has  a  *  Vision  of 
Judgment'  there;  and  a  *  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  my 
Grandmother's  Eeview,'  of  the  wickedest  and  clever- 
est turn  you  could  imagine.  *  *  *  This  is  a  wild, 
fighting,  loving,  praying,  blaspheming,  weeping, 
laughing  sort  of  world!" 

22. 

"Kenxaird  House,  June  17,  1823. 

"  Your  letters  have  a  charm  to  me,  independently 
of  their  intrinsic  merit.  They  are  letters  of  my  first 
and  oldest  correspondent;  they  carry  back  the  mind 
to  old  days — days  perhaps  in  themselves  not  greatly 
better  than  those  now  passing  over  us,  but  invested 
by  the  kind  treachery  of  imagination  with  hues  which 
nothing  present  can  equal.  If  I  have  any  fault  to 
find  with  you  it  is  in  the  very  excess  of  what  renders 
any  correspondence  agreeable — the  excess  of  your 
complaisance,  the  too  liberal  [word  wanting]  which 
you  offer  at  the  shrine  of  other  people's  vanity.  I 
might  object  to  this  with  the  more  asperity  did  I  not 
consider  that  flattery  is  in  truth  the  sovereign  emol- 
lient, the  true  oil  of  life,  by  which  the  joints  of  the 
great  social  machine,  often  stiff  and  rusty  enough,  are 
kept  from  grating,  and  made  to  play  sweetly  to  and 
fro ;  hence,  that  if  you  pour  it  on  a  thought  too  lav- 
ishly, it  is  an  error  on  the  safe  side — an  error  which 


192  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

proceeds  from  the  native  warmness  of  your  heart, 
and  ought  not  to  be  quarrelled  with  too  sharply ;  not, 
at  least,  by  one  who  profits,  though  unduly,  by  the 
commission  of  it.  So  I  will  submit  to  be  treated  as 
a  kind  of  slender  genius,  since  my  friend  will  have 
it  so.  Our  intercourse  will  fare  but  little  worse  on 
that  account.  We  have  now,  as  you  say,  known  each 
other  long,  and  never,  I  trust,  seen  aught  to  make  us 
ashamed  of  that  relation.  I  calculate  that  succeed- 
ing years  will  but  more  firmly  establish  our  connec- 
tion, strengthening  with  the  force  of  habit,  and  the 
memory  of  new  kind  offices,  what  has  a  right  to  sub- 
sist without  those  aids.  Some  time  hence,  when  you 
are  seated  in  your  peaceful  manse — you  at  one  side 
of  the  parlor  fire,  Mrs.  M.  at  the  other,  and  two  or 
three  little  M.'s,  fine  chubby  urchins,  hopping  about 
the  carpet — you  will  suddenly  observe  the  door  fly 
open,  and  a  tall,  meagre,  care-worn  figure  stalk  for- 
ward, his  grim  countenance  lightened  by  unusual 
smiles,  in  the  certainty  of  meeting  with  a  cordial 
welcome.  This  knight  of  the  rueful  visage  will,  in 
fact,  mingle  with  the  group  ior  a  season,  and  be 
merry  as  the  merriest,  though  his  looks  are  sinister. 
I  warn  you  to  make  provision  for  such  emergencies. 
In  process  of  time,  I,  too,  must  have  my  own  peculiar 
hearth ;  wayward  as  my  destiny  has  hitherto  been, 
perplexed  and  solitary  as  my  path  of  life  still  is,  I 
never  cease  to  reckon  on  yet  paying  scot  and  lot  on 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  193 

my  own  footing.  Like  the  men  of  Glasgow,  I  shall 
have  '  a  house  within  myself '  (what  tremendous  db- 
domina  we  householders  have !)  with  every  suitable 
appurtenance,  before  all  is  done ;  and  when  friends 
are  met,  there  is  little  chance  that  will  be  forgotten. 
We  shall  talk  over  old  times,  compare  old  hopes  with 
new  fortune,  and  secure  comfort  by  Sir  John  Sin- 
clair's celebrated  recipe,  hy  'being  comfortahle.  There 
are  certainly  brave  times :  would  they  could  only  be 
persuaded  to  come  on  a  little  faster. 

"  Dunkeld  is  about  the  prettiest  village  I  ever  be- 
held. I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  bright  sunset,  when 
skirting  the  base  of  the  "  Birnam  Wood  "  (there  is  no 
wood  now)  and  asking  for  Dunsinane's  high  hill, 
which  lies  far  to  the  eastward,  and  thinking  of  the 
immortal  link-boy  who  has  consecrated  those  two 
spots,  which  he  never  saw,  with  a  glory  that  [will 
last]  forever.  I  first  came  in  sight  of  the  ancient 
capital  of  Caledonia,  standing  in  the  lap  of  the 
mountains,  with  its  quick  broad  river  running  by — 
its  old  gray  cathedral,  and  its  peak -roofed  white 
houses  peering  through  many  groves  of  stately  trees, 
all  gilded  from  the  glowing  west — the  whole  so  clear 
and  pure  and  gorgeous  as  if  it  had  been  a  city  of 
fairy -land;  not  a  vulgar  clachan,  where  men  sell 
stots,  and  women  buy  eggs  by  the  dozen.  I  walked 
round  and  round  it  till  late,  the  evening  I  left  you. 
*  *  *  The  virtue  of  punctuality  [is  not  considered] 


194  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

in  treatises  of  Ethics,  but  it  is  of  essential  impor- 
tance in  the  conduct  of  life ;  like  common  kitchen- 
salt,  scarce  heeded  bj  cooks  and  purveyors,  though 
without  it  their  wares  would  soon  run  to  rottenness 
and  ruin." 

23. 

^^  August,  1824. 

"  *  *  *  I  quitted  the  muddy  beach  of  my  native 
Scotland,  'stern  nurse  for  a  dyspeptic  child,'  with  no 
other  feelings  towards  it  than  I  had  long  entertain- 
ed. Hard,  rugged  land !  I  often  think  of  its  earnest 
features  amid  the  rich  scenes  of  the  south.  Distance 
is  producing  something  of  its  usual  effect:  much 
that  was  unpleasant  or  repulsive  is  forgotten  or  soft- 
ened down ;  and  I  think  of  the  green  landscape  of 
Perthshire  or  the  bleak  simplicity  of  Annandale, 
which  the  sight  of  them  was  often  far  from  giving. 
London  astonishes,  disgusts,  and  charms  me.  There 
are  two  or  three  persons  there  whom  I  should  regret 
to  know  no  more  about. 

<(  *  *  4f ig  not  a  Scotchman.  -^  ^  *  Hard- 
ship, I  suspect,  has  withered  out  the  sensibilities  of 
his  nature,  and  turned  him,  finally,  into  a  whisking, 
antithetical  little  editor.  There  is  no  significance  in 
his  aspect.  His  blue  frock,  and  switch,  and  fashion- 
able wig,  and  clear,  cold  eyes,  and  dipt  accents,  and 
slender  persiflage  might  befit  a  dandy.  *  *  *  Allan 
Cunninsrham  I  love :  he  retains  the  honest  tones  of 


THOMAS    CAELYLE.  195 

Lis  native  Nithsdale  true  as  ever.  He  has  a  heart ; 
a  mind  simple  as  a  child's,  but  with  touches  of  gen- 
ius singularly  wild  and  original. is  a  kind 

little  fellow,  sings  Italian  airs,  keeps  daggers  and 
other  plaj-gear  lying  on  his  dressing-table,  and  is  of 

the  mob  of  gentlemen  who  write  with  ease.     

sprawls  about  as  if  his  body  consisted  of  four 

ill-conditioned  flails.  Coleridge  is  a  steam-engine 
of  a  hundred  horses'  power,  with  the  boiler  burst. 
His  talk  is  resplendent  with  imagery  and  the  shows 
of  thought ;  you  listen  as  to  an  oracle,  and  find  your- 
self no  jot  the  wiser.  He  is  without  beginning  or 
middle  or  end.  *  *  *  A  round,  fat,  oily,  yet  impatient 
little  man,  his  mind  seems  totally  beyond  his  own 
control ;  he  speaks  incessantly,  not  thinking  or  [il- 
legible] remembering,  but  combining  all  these  proc- 
esses into  one,  as  a  lazy  housewife  might  mingle 
her  soup  and  fish  and  beef  and  custard  into  one  un- 
speakable mass,  and  present  it  true-heartedly  to  her 
astonished  guest." 

24. 

"ScoTSBRiG,  June  20, 1826. 

"*  *  *  Be  in  no  haste  for  a  church;  and  feel 
very  happy  that  you  can  do  very  comfortably  with- 
out one,  till  the  time  come — whenever  that  may  be. 
I  begin  to  see  that  one  is  fifty  times  better  for  being 
heartily  drilled  in  the  school  of  experience,  though 
beaten  daily  for  years  with  forty  stripes  save  one. 


196  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

I  used  to  reckon  myself  very  wretched,  and  now  I 
find  that  no  jot  of  my  castigation  could  have  been 
spared." 

25. 

**  21  CoMLEY  Bank  Kow, 
Edinburgh,  December  12,  1827. 

"  My  dear  Sik, — My  mother  is  arrived  here  on  a 
short  visit  to  us,  and  feels  extremely  anxious,  among 
other  purposes,  to  see  her  old  friend,  your  aunt,  Mrs. 
Hope,  whom  she  parted  with  in  Ecclefechan,  many 
years  ago,  with  very  little  expectation  of  ever  meet- 
ing her  again.  I  think  you  once  told  me  the  old 
lady  lived  somewhere  in  the  outskirts  of  this  city ; 
if  so,  it  will  not  be  impossible  to  bring  about  this  in- 
terview, in  which  I  myself  feel  somewhat  interested, 
havinoj  still  a  vivid  recollection  of  that  disastrous  2:i«r 
expedition  which  I  executed  under  ^^our  auspices  on 
the  Moffatt  Eoad.  Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  send 
us  a  note  of  Mrs.  Hope's  address,  and  let  us  try  if  we 
can  find  her  ?  The  sooner  the  better,  for  my  moth- 
er's time  is  limited. 

"  I  dare  say  you  come  often  to  Edinburgh :  how  is 
it  that  you  never  find  your  way  to  Comley  Bank? 
Come  hither,  and  I  will  show  you  my  little  cottage, 
and  introduce  you  to  my  little  wife,  who  will  receive 
you  with  all  graciousness  as  her  husband's  friend. 
Come  down  the  very  first  time  you  visit  Edinburgh. 
There  is  a  spare  bed  here,  and  many  a  reminiscence 
of  auld  lang-^yne. 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE.  197 

"  I  am  grown  quite  a  stranger  in  Glasgow  of  late 
years,  now  that  Graliame  and  Irving  and  all  have 
left  it :  yet  the  memory  of  that  hospitable,  jolly,  well- 
living  city  still  dwells  with  me  fresh  as  ever,  and 
hopes  that  a  time  is  coming  when  I  may  behold  it 
again.  Meanwhile  my  true  prayer  is,  in  the  words 
of  your  civic  emblazonry.  Let  Glasgow  flourish !  and 
you  and  all  the  honest  hearts  that  have  your  being 
in  it. 

"  My  mother  brings  no  tidings  from  Grahame,  ex- 
cept that  he  is  still  at  Burnswark,  irrigating  meadows, 
salting  bog  hay,  and  striving  by  agricultural  philoso- 
phy to  make  'the  desert  blossom  as  the  rose.'  I 
heard  that  he  had  hopes  of  returning  to  your  city 
and  resuming  traffic.  I  pray  that  it  may  be  so,  for 
it  is  a  thousand  pities  so  good  and  gifted  a  man  were 
not  working  in  his  proper  sphere,  where  alone  lie 
can  be  happy  and  wholesomely  active. 

"  I  have  heard  several  times  from  the  Caledonian 
orator  of  late.  He  does  not  seem  in  the  least  mil- 
lenniary  in  his  letters :  but  the  same  old  friendly  man 
we  have  long  known  him  to  be.  And  yet  Lis  print- 
ed works  are  enough  to  strike  one  blank  with  amaze- 
ment :  for  if  the  millennium  is  to  come  upon  us  in 
twenty  years  and  odd  months,  ought  we  not  to  be 
turning  a  new  leaf  ?  ought  not  you  to  shut  up  your 
ledger  and  I  my  note-book,  and  both  of  us  to  sit  on 
the  lookout,  like  Preventive-service  men,  spying  and 


198  THOMAS   CARLTLE. 

scenting,  with  eje  and  nostril,  whether  there  be 
aught  of  it  in  the  wind  ?  Alas !  alas !  the  madness 
of  man  findeth  no  termination,  but  only  new  shapes, 
the  old  spirit  being  still  the  same.  To  the  last  there 
is  and  will  be  a  bee  in  his  bonnet,  which  only  in 
every  new  generation  buzzes  with  a  new  note. 

"  I  am  scribbling  here  with  considerable  diligence, 
and  not  without  satisfaction,  though  still  in  very  poor 
health.  In  the  course  of  years  I  hope  to  grow  bet- 
ter; but  now,  such  is  the  extent  of  my  philosophy, 
I  think  I  can  partly  do,  whether  I  get  better  or  not. 
My  brother  John,  the  doctor,  is  away  in  Germany, 
dissecting  subjects,  I  suppose,  at  this  very  date,  in 
Munich,  the  capital  of  Bavaria.  He  writes  to  us  full 
of  wonder  at  the  marvels  of  that  strange  land.  Mrs. 
C.  and  I  have  some  thoughts  of  going  thither  and 
winter  ourselves.  But  why  should  I  darken  counsel 
by  words  without  wisdom?  Send  us  that  address  of 
Mrs.  Hope  as  soon  as  possible ;  come  over  to  Comley 
Bank  the  first  day  or  night  you  are  in  town ;  and 
believe  me  ever,  my  dear  sir, 

"  Affectionately  yours, 

"Thomas  Cablyle." 
26. 

*'  Craigenputtoch,  May  31, 1828. 

« 4f  ^  *  Q  J^furray !  how  we  poor  sons  of  Adam 
are  shovelled  to  and  fro !  Do  you  remember  when 
we  walked  together,  you  escorting  me,  to  the  fifth 


THOMAS    CARLYLE.  199 

mile-stone  on  the  Dumfries  road  ?  Two  young  pil- 
grims ;  yet  even  then  tlie  future  looking  stern  and 
fateful  in  our  eyes !  How  many  a  weary  foot  have 
we  had  to  travel  since  that  hour !  and  here  we  are 
still  travelling,  and  must  travel  till  the  sun  set  and 
we  get  to  our  inn !  Well,  let  us  travel  cheerily ;  for, 
after  all,  it  is  a  brave  journey :  the  great  universe  is 
around  us;  time  and  space  are  ours;  and  in  that 
city  whither  we  are  bound  it  is  said  *  there  are  many 
mansions.' " 

27. 

TO   FERGUSON. 

"  Annan,  October  22,  1820. 

"  My  dear  Ferguson, — I  delayed  writing  to  you 
chiefly  for  the  old  reason — want  of  anything  to  say ; 
and  I  have  begun  to  write  not  because  that  want  is 
at  all  sufficiently  supplied,  but  because  I  would  not 
vex  your  mind  by  unfounded  suspicions  that  absence 
and  oblivion  are  interchangeable  terms  in  my  vo- 
cabulary, or  that  the  light  of  two  months'  experience 
has  shown  me  any  flaws  in  your  character  to  the 
prejudice  of  our  wavering  though  agreeable  {sic)  cor- 
respondence. I  prize  the  frankness  of  your  pro- 
cedure in  writing  a  second  time ;  there  is  so  much  of 
the  counting-house  in  formal  regularity,  one  likes  to 
see  a  friend's  letter  sometimes  want  the  *  I  duly  re- 
ceived your  valuable  favor,  dated,  and  so  forth.'  It 
is  not  my  inclination  to  put  your  generosity  often  to 


200  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

such  trials ;  but  I  promise  you  the  present  exercise 
of  it  shall  not  be  thrown  away. 

"  The  first  letter,  written  late,  appears  also  to  have 
lingered  long  on  the  road.  It  reached  me  while  in 
the  heat  of  managing  a  small  concern,  which  not 
long  after  called  me  into  Yorkshire ;  and  I  wilfully 
delayed  sending  an  answer,  till,  the  affair  being  final- 
ly adjusted,  I  might  have  it  in  my  power  to  com- 
municate what  seemed  then  likely  to  produce  a  con- 
siderable change  in  my  stile  {sic)  of  life.  The  mat- 
ter I  allude  to  was  a  proposal  to  become  ^  a  travelling 
tutor,'  as  they  call  it,  to  a  young  person  in  the  North 
Hiding,  for  whom  that  exercise  was  recommended, 
on  account  of  bodily  and  mental  weakness.  They 
offered  me  £150  per  annum,  and  withal  invited  me 
to  come  and  examine  things  on  the  spot,  before  en- 
gaging. I  went,  accordingly,  and  happy  was  it  I 
w^ent.  From  description,  I  was  ready  to  accept  the 
place;  from  inspection,  all  Earndale  would  not  have 
hired  me  to  accept  it.  This  boy  was  a  dotard,  a  semi- 
vegetable  ;  the  elder  brother,  head  of  the  family,  a 
two-legged  animal  without  feathers,  intellect,  or  vir- 
tue; and  all  the  connections  seemed  to  have  the 
power  of  eating  pudding,  but  no  higher  power.  So 
I  left  the  barbarous  people — kindly,  however,  because 
they  used  me  kindly,  and  crossed  the  Sark,  with  a 
higher  respect  for  our  own  bleak  fatherland  than 
ever  I  had  felt  before.   York  is  but  a  heap  of  bricks ; 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE.  201 

Jonathan  Dryasdust  (see  'Ivanhoe')  is  justly  named. 
It  was  edifying  to  bear  the  principal  of  their  Uni- 
tarian College  lament  the  prevalence  of  mysticism 
in  religion ;  and  as  to  their  newspaper  editor,  though 
made  of  lead,  he  is  lighter  tlian  McCullogh's  little 
finger.  York  is  the  Boeotia  of  Britain ;  its  inhabi- 
tants enjoy  all  sensual  pleasures  in  perfection ;  they 
have  not  even  the  idea  of  any  other.  Upon  the 
whole,  however,  I  derived  great  amusement  from  my 
journey.  I  viewed  a  most  rich  and  picturesque  coun- 
try. I  conversed  with  all  kinds  of  men,  from  graz- 
iers up  to  knights  of  the  shire ;  argued  with  them 
all,  and  broke  specimens  from  the  souls  (if  any), 
Avhich  I  retain  within  the  museum  of  my  cranium 
for  your  inspection  at  a  future  day. 

"  It  is  scarce  a  week  since  I  returned  from  this  ex- 
pedition ;  and  now  my  plans  must  all  be  altered.  If 
I  come  to  Edinburgh,  which  seems  likely,  few  manu- 
scripts will  accompany  or  follow  me  ;  no  settled  pur- 
pose will  direct  my  conduct,  and  the  next  scene  of 
this  fever  dream  is  likely  to  be  as  painful  as  the  last. 
Expect  no  account  of  my  prospects  there,  for  I  have 
no  prospects  that  are  worth  the  name.  I  am  like  a 
being  thrown  from  another  planet  on  tliis  dark  ter- 
restrial ball,  an  alien,  a  pilgrim  among  its  possessors; 
I  have  no  share  in  their  pursuits ;  and  life  is  to  me 
like  a  pathless,  a  waste,  and  howling  wilderness — sur- 
face barrenness,  its  verge  enveloped    under  ^dark- 

9-^ 


202  THOMAS    CARLYLE. 

brown  shade.'  Yet  hope  will  sometimes  visit  me, 
and,  at  the  worst,  complaint  is  weak,  and  idle  if  it 
were  not.  After  all,  one  has  a  desperate  struggle — 
and  for  what?  For  the  bubble  reputation,  that  we 
may  fly  alive  through  the  mouths  of  men,  and  be 
thought  happy,  or  learned,  or  great,  by  creatures  as 
feeble  and  fleeting  as  ourselves.  Sure  it  is  a  sorry 
recompense  for  so  much  [illegible]  bustle  and  vex- 
ation. Do  not  leave  your  situation,  if  you  can  possi- 
bly avoid  it.  Experience  shows  it  to  be  a  fearful 
thing  to  be  swept  on  by  the  roaring  surge  of  life,  and 
then  to  float  alone — undirected  on  its  restless,  mon- 
strous bosom.  Keep  ashore  while  yet  you  may ;  or, 
if  you  must  to  sea,  sail  under  convoy ;  trust  not  the 
waves  without  a  guide.  You  and  I  are  but  pinnaces 
or  cockboats  yet ;  hold  fast  by  the  Manilla  ship ;  do 
not  let  go  the  painter,  however  rough  and  grating. 
I  am  sorry  you  are  tired  of  anatomy,  and  such  things. 
I  am  tired  too,  but  that  does  not  mend  the  matter. 
Yet  trust  the  best ;  neo  dens  intersit  is  indeed  true, 
naturally  as  well  as  poetically.  Yet  in  spite  of  this, 
all  things  will  and  shall  be  well,  if  we  believe  aright. 
I  designed  to  tell  you  a  long  tale  about  my  most  neg- 
lected studies,  but  I  have  no  room.  I  have  lived  ri- 
otously with  Schiller,  Goethe,  and  the  rest.  They 
are  the  greatest  men  at  present  with  me, 
"  I  am  yours  aflectionately, 

"T.Caklyle." 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE.  203 


28. 
TO  LEIGH  HUNT. 
"Craigenpdttoch,  Dumfries,  November  20, 1832. 

"My  dear  Sir, — I  sent  you  a  little  note,  by 
some  conveyance  I  had,  several  months  ago;  wheth- 
er it  ever  came  to  hand  is  unknown  here.  We 
learned  soon  afterwards,  from  a  notice  in  the  J^ew 
Monthly  Magazine,  that  you  were  again  suffering  in 
health. 

"  If  that  note  reached  you,  let.this  be  the  second ; 
if  it  did  not,  let  this  be  the  first  little  messenger  ar- 
riving from  the  mountains  to  inquire  for  you,  to 
bring  assurance  that  you  are  lovingly  remembered 
here,  that  nothing  befalling  you  can  be  indifferent 
to  us. 

"Being  somewhat  uncertain  about  the  number  of 
your  house,  I  send  this  under  cover  to  a  friend  who 
will  punctually  see  that  it  reaches  its  address.  If  he 
deliver  it  in  person,  as  is  not  impossible,  you  will 
find  him  worth  welcoming.  He  is  John  Mill,  eldest 
son  of  India  Mill ;  and,  I  may  say,  one  of  the  best, 
clearest-headed,  and  clearest-hearted  young  men  now 
living  in  London. 

"  We  sometimes  fancy  we  observe  you  in  Tai!'s 
and  other  periodicals.  Have  the  charity  sometime 
soon  to  send  us  a  token  of  your  being  and  well- 


204  THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 

being.     We  often  speak  of  you  here,  and  are  very 
obstinate  in  remembering. 

"  I  still  wish  mucli  you  would  write  Hazlitt's  Life. 
Somewhat  of  history  lay  in  that  too  luckless  man ; 
and  you,  of  all  I  can  think  of,  have  the  organ  for 
discerning  it  and  delineating  it. 

"  As  for  myself,  I  am  doing  little.  The  literary 
element  is  one  of  the  most  confused  to  live  in,  at  all 
times ;  the  bibliopolic  condition  of  this  time  renders 
it  perfect  chaos.  One  must  write  '  articles ' — write 
and  curse  (as  Ancient  Pistol  ate  his  leek) ;  what  can 
one  do  ? 

"My  wife  is  not  with  me  to-day,  otherwise  she 
would  surely  beg  to  be  remembered.  You  will  offer 
my  best  wishes  to  Mrs.  Hunt,  to  Miss,  and  the  little 
gray-eyed  philosopher  who  listened  to  us. 

"  I  asked  you  to  come  hither  and  see  us,  whenever 
you  wanted  to  rusticate  a  month.  Is  that  forever 
impossible  ? 

"I  remain,  always,  my  dear  sir,  yours  truly  and 
kindly,  T.  Caklyle." 

29. 

"  Craigenputtoch,  April  18,  1834. 

"  My  dear  Sie, — Your  letters  are  rare,  too  rare, 
in  their  outward  quality  of  sequence  through  the 
post ;  but  happily  still  rarer  in  their  inward  quality ; 
the  hope  and  kind  trustful  sympathy  of  new  eigh- 
teen dwelling  unworn  under  hair  which,  you  tell  me, 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  205 

is  getting  tinged  with  gray.  It  is  actually  true  we 
are  coming  to  London !  So  far  has  Destiny  and  a 
little  resolution  brought  it.  The  kind  Mrs.  Austin, 
after  search  enough,  has  now  (we  imagine)  found  us 
a  house  which  I  hope  and  believe  is  not  very  far 
from  yours.  It  shall  be  farther  than  my  widest  cal- 
culation if  I  fail  to  meet  your  challenge,  and  walk 
and  talk  with  you  to  all  lengths.  I  know  not  well 
how  Chelsea  lies  from  the  Parish  Church  of  Ken- 
sington, but  it  is  within  sight  of  the  latter  we  are  to 
be;  and  some  ^ trysting-tree '  (do  you  know  so  much 
Scotch  ?)  is  already  getting  into  leaf,  as  yet  uncon- 
scious of  its  future  honor  between  these  two  suburbs 
of  Babylon.  Some  days,  too,  we  will  walk  the  whole 
day  long,  in  wide  excursion ;  you  lecturing  me  on 
the  phenomena  of  the  region,  which  to  you  are  na- 
tive. My  best  amusement  is  walking;  I  like,  as  well 
as  Hadrian  himself,  to  mete  out  my  world  with  steps 
of  my  own,  and  to  take  possession  of  it.  But  if  to 
this  you  add  Speech !  Is  not  Speech  defined  to  be 
cheerfuller  than  light,  and  the  eldest  daughter  of 
Heaven  ?  I  mean  articulate  discourse  of  reason,  that 
comes  from  the  internal  heavenly  part  of  us ;  not  the 
confused  gabble,  which  (in  so  many  millions)  comes 
from  no  deeper  than  the  palate  of  the  mouth,  which 
it  is  the  saddest  of  all  things  to  listen  to — a  thing 
that  fills  one  alternately  with  sorrow  and  indignation, 
and  at  last  almost  with  a  kind  of  horror  and  terror. 


206  TkoMAS   CAELYLE. 

As  if  the  world  were  a  huge  Bedlam,  and  the  sacred 
speech  of  men  had  become  an  inarticulate  jargon  of 
hungry,  cawing  rooks ! 

"  We  laid  down  your  description  of  your  house  as 
the  model  our  kind  friend  was  to  aim  at.  How  far 
we  have  prospered  will  be  seen.  In  rent  we  are 
nearly  on  a  par.  We  also  anticipate  quiet,  and  some 
visitations  of  the  heavenly  air ;  but,  for  the  rest,  ours 
will  be  no  ^high-wainscoted'  dwelling,  like  Homer's 
and  yours — no,  some  new-fangled  brickwork  which 
will  tremble  at  every  step,  in  which  no  four-footed 
thing  can  stand,  but  only  three-footed,  such  as  *  Hol- 
land Street,  Kensington,'  in  this  year  of  grace,  can 
be  expected  to  yield.  However,  there  is  a  patch  of 
garden,  or,  indeed,  two  patches.  I  shall  have  some 
little  crib  for  my  books  and  writing-table,  and  so  do 
the  best  that  may  be.  Innumerable  vague  forebod- 
ings hang  over  me  as  I  write;  meanwhile  there  is 
one  grand  assurance — the  feeling  that  it  was  a  duty, 
almost  a  necessity.  My  dame,  too,  is  of  resolution 
for  the  enterprise,  and  whatsoever  may  follow  it ;  so, 
forward  in  God's  name ! 

"  I  have  seen  nothing  of  you  for  a  long  time,  ex- 
cept what  of  the  ^  Delicacies  of  Pig-driving'  my  Ex- 
aminer once  gave  me.  A  most  tickling  thing,  not  a 
word  of  which  can  I  remember ;  only  the  wholQ  fact 
of  it,  pictured  in  such  subquizzical,  sweet-acid  geni- 
ality of  mockery,  stands  here,  and,  among  smaller  and 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  207 

greater  tilings,  will  stand.  If  the  two  volumes  are  of 
that  quality,  they  will  be  worth  a  welcome.  I  cannot 
expect  them  now  till  the  beginning  of  May ;  or  per- 
haps I  may  even  still  find  them  with  Eraser  at  Whit- 
suntide.   Here  among  the  moors  they  were  best  of  all. 

"  The  starting  of  your  Journal  was  a  glad  event 
for  me ;  it  seems  one  of  the  hopefullest  projects  in 
these  days :  and  surely  it  must  be  a  strange  public, 

one  would  think,  in  which prospers  and 

Leigh  Hunt  fails.  You  must  bear  up  steadily  at 
first ;  it  is  there,  in  this  as  in  all  things,  that  the 
grand  difficulties  lie. 

"Thornton  need  be  under  no  uneasiness  about 
Henry  Inglis,  from  whom  we  heard  not  long  ago, 
with  some  remark,  too,  of  a  very  friendly  character, 
about  the  traveller  in  question,  and  not  the  faintest 
hint  about  pounds  or  shillings. 

"I  am  writing  nothing ;  reading,  above  all  things, 
my  old  Homer  and  Prolegomena  enough;  the  old 
song  itself  with  a  most  singular  delight.  Fancy  me 
as  reading  till  you  see  me ;  then  must  another  scene 
open.  Your  newspapers  will  interest  me ;  as  for  the 
unhappy  *  Sartor,'  none  can  detest  him  more  than  my 
present  self.  There  are  some  ten  pages  r\^t\j  fused 
and  harmonious ;  the  rest  is  only  welded,  or  even  ag- 
glomerated, and  may  be  thrown  to  the  swine.  All 
salutations  from  us  both ! 

"  Valete  et  nos  amate  !  T.  Caelyle." 


208  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 


30* 

**  Chelsea,  June  17,  1850. 

"  Deae  Hunt, — I  have  just  finished  your  *  Auto- 
biography,' which  has  been  most  pleasantly  occupj^- 
ing  all  my  leisure  these  three  days;  and  you  must 
permit  me  to  write  you  a  word  upon  it,  out  of  the 
fulness  of  the  heart,  while  the  impulse  is  still  fresh, 
to  thank  you.  This  good  book,  in  every  sense  one  of 
the  best  I  have  read  this  long  while,  has  awakened 
many  old  thoughts  which  never  were  extinct,  or  even 
properly  asleep,  but  which  (like  so  much  else)  have 
had  to  fall  silent  amid  the  tempests  of  an  evil  time — 
Heaven  mend  it !  A  word  from  me  once  more,  I 
know,  will  not  be  unwelcome  while  the  world  is  talk- 
ing of  you. 

"Well,  I  call  this  an  excellent  good  book,  by  far 
the  best  of  the  autobiographic  kind  I  remember  to 
have  read  in  the  English  language ;  and,  indeed,  ex- 
cept it  be  BoswelFs  of  Johnson,  I  do  not  know  where 
we  have  such  a  picture  drawn  of  human  life  as  in 
these  three  volumes. 

"  A  pious,  ingenious,  altogether  human  and  worthy 
book,  imaging,  with  graceful  honesty  and  free  felic- 

*  This  letter,  though  most  of  it  appeared  in  an  edition  of  Leigh 
Hunt's  ''Autobiography,"  is  here  for  the  first  time  printed  verbatim, 
and  therefore  included  among  others  which  appear  here  for  the  first 
time. 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  209 

ity,  many  interesting  objects  and  persons  on  your 
life-path,  and  imaging  throughout,  what  is  best  of 
all,  a  gifted,  gentle,  patient,  and  valiant  human  soul, 
as  it  buffets  its  way  through  the  billows  of  the  time, 
and  will  not  drown,  though  often  in  danger ;  cannot 
be  drowned,  but  conquers,  and  leaves  a  track  of  radi- 
ance behind  it :  that,  I  think,  comes  out  more  clearly 
to  me  than  in  any  other  of  your  books;  and  that,  I 
can  venture  to  assure  you,  is  the  best  of  all  results 
to  realize  in  a  book  or  written  record.  In  fact,  this 
book  has  been  like  an  exercise  of  devotion  to  me ;  I 
have  not  assisted  at  any  sermon,  liturgy  or  litany,  this 
long  while,  that  has  had  so  religious  an  effect  on  me. 
Thanks  in  the  name  of  all  men  !  And  believe,  along 
with  me,  that  this  book  will  be  welcome  to  other 
generations  as  well  as  ours.  And  long  may  you  live 
to  write  more  books  for  us;  and  may  the  evening 
sun  be  softer  on  you  (and  on  me)  than  the  noon 
sometimes  was ! 

"Adieu,  dear  Hunt  (you  must  let  me  use  this 
familiarity,  for  I  am  now  an  old  fellow  too,  as  well 
as  you).  I  have  often  thought  of  coming  up  to  see 
you  once  more;  and  perhaps  I  shall,  one  of  these 
days  (though  horribly  sick  and  lonely,  and  beset  with 
spectral  lions,  go  whitherward  one  may) ;  but,  whether 
I  do  or  not,  believe  forever  in  my  regard.  And  so 
God  bless  you !  prays  heartily  T.  Carlyle." 


210  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 


31. 

*' Chelsea,  Jttwe  21. 

"Dear  Hunt, — Many  kind  thanks!  I  saw  the 
book,  and  sent  thanks  for  it  by  Yincent ;  but  I  did 
not  know,  till  this  minute,  what  other  pleasant  things 
lay  in  the  letter  itself,  which  the  dusk  and  the  hurry 
would  not  suffer  me  to  read  at  the  moment.  By  all 
means,  yes,  yes !  My  wife  is  overjoyed  at  the  pros- 
pect of  seeing  you  again  in  the  good  old  style.  Cour- 
age, and  do  not  disappoint  us.  We  are  here,  quite 
disengaged,  and  shall  be  right  glad  to  see  you. 

"I  hope  Yincent  explained  what  a  miscellaneous 
uproar  had  accidentally  got  about  me  to-night,  and 
how  for  want  of  light,  as  well  as  of  time,  I  missed 
the  kernel  of  the  letter  altogether.  Tuesday,  re- 
member !  We  dine  about  five,  and  tea  comes  nat- 
urally about  seven — sooner  if  you  will  come  sooner. 

"  One  of  my  people  to-night,  an  accomplished  kind 
of  American,  has  begged  a  card  of  introduction  to 
you.  He  is  a  son  of  a  certain  noted  Judge  Story ; 
is  himself,  I  believe,  a  kind  of  sculptor  and  artist,  as 
well  as  lawyer.  Pray  receive  him  if  he  call ;  you 
will  find  him  a  friendly  and  entertainable  and  enter- 
taining man. 

"And  so,  till  Tuesday  evening, 

"  Yours  with  all  regard, 

"  T.  Carlyle." 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  21l 

32. 

TO   WILLIAM  BRIDGES. 

"  Chelsea,  November  19,  1846. 

"  My  dear  Sie, — I  have  read  your  letter,  *  History 
in  a  Kutshell,'  with  much  pleasure.  It  is  surely  an 
eloquent,  pious,  melodious  conception  of  that  im- 
measurable matter;  and,  if  you  chose  to  elaborate 
it  further,  might  lead  you  into  all  manner  of  interest- 
ing analogies  and  contrasts.  I  like  well,  in  particu- 
lar, that  co-ordinating  of  sacred  events  with  events 
called  *  Profane.'  We  ought  to  know  always  that 
if  any  one  of  them  be  sacred,  they  are  all  sacred. 
That  is  the  right  use  to  make  of  the,  at  present,  very 
burdensome  'Hebrew  element'  in  our  affairs.  In 
this  way  we  shall  conquer  it,  not  let  it  conquer  us — 
which  latter  is  a  very  bad  result,  worse  even  than 
running  from  it ;  as  the  world  in  these  centuries,  as 
a  had-hest,  is  very  much  inclined  to  do.  I  should  be 
glad  to  know  more  minutely  what  you  are  about  of 
late ;  and  to  see  you  here  some  evening  when  you 
feel  inclined  to  walk  so  far. 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"  T.  Caelyle." 


212  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

33. 

TO  A  LITERARY  FRIEND. 
"The  Grange,  Alresford,  Hants,  September  26,  1848. 

"  Dear , — I  know  not  what  little  ti£[  this  is 

that  has  arisen  between and  you,  but  I  wish 

ranch  it  would  handsomely  blow  over,  and  leave  all 
of  you  in  the  simple  state  of  as  you  were.  Eeflect- 
iner  on  the  enclosed  little  note  that  reached  me  this 
morning,  I  decide  that  one  of  the  usefullest  things  I 
could,  in  the  first  place,  attempt  in  regard  to  it  would 
be  to  try  if  hereby  the  matter  could  not  be  quashed, 
and  people  who  are  certainly  good  friends,  and  who 
are  probably  of  real  service  to  one  another,  be  pre- 
vented from  flying  asunder  on  slight  cause. 

"  This  controversy  I  know  well  enough  to  be  per- 
petual and  universal  between  Editor  and  Contribu- 
tor: no  law  can  settle  it;  the  best  wisdom  can  do 
no  better  than  suppress  it  from  time  to  time.  On 
's  side  I  will  counsel  patience,  everywhere  need- 
ful in  human  affairs ;  on  your  side,  I  would  say  that 
though  an  editor  can  never  wholly  abandon  his  right 
to  superintend,  which  will  mean  an  occasional  right 
to  alter,  or  at  least  to  remonstrate  and  propose  altera- 
tions, yet  it  is  in  general  wise,  when,  as  in  this  ease, 
you  have  got  a  really  conscientious,  accurate,  and 
painstaking  contributor,  to  be  sparing  in  the  exercise 
of  the  right,  and  to  put  up  with  various  unessential 


THOMAS   CAELYLE.  213 

things  rather  than  forcibly  break  in  to  amend  them. 
You  have  perhaps  but  a  faint  idea  how  much  it  dis- 
tresses and  disheartens  such  a  man  as  I  describe; 
nay,  lames  him  in  the  practice  of  his  art,  and  tends 
to  put  his  conscience  especially  into  painful  abey- 
ance. 'What  is  the  use  of  me?'  his  literary  con- 
science says ;  '  better  for  us  all  that  I  went  to  sleep.' 
When  a  man  has  a  literary  conscience — which  I  be- 
lieve is  a  very  rare  case — this  result  is  a  most  sad 
one  to  bring  about ;  hurtful  not  to  himself  only,  as 
you  may  well  perceive.  In  fact,  I  think  a  serious 
sincere  man  cannot  very  well  write  if  he  have  the 
perpetual  fear  of  correction  before  his  eyes ;  and  if 
I  were  the  master  of  such  a  one,  I  should  certainly 
endeavor  to  leave  him  (within  very  wide  limits)  his 
own  director,  and  to  let  him  feel  that  he  was  so,  and 
responsible  accordingly. 

"Forgive  me  if  I  interfere  unduly  with  your  af- 
fairs.    If  the  case  be  that  you  perceive,  after  the 

trial,  that is   no   longer   worth   his   wages  to 

the ,  then  all  is  said,  and  I  have  not  a  word  to 

object.  But  if  it  be  not  so,  and  this  is  but  a  transi- 
tory embarrassment  of  detail,  then  it  will  be  a  service 
to  both  parties  if  I  can  get  it  ended  within  the  safe 
limits.  Of  the  fact,  how  it  may  stand,  I  know  noth- 
ing at  all,  and  you  alone  can  know. 

"  All  help  that  I  can  give in  other  courses  of 

enterprise  I  have,  of  course,  to  promise  him ;  but  I 


214  THOMAS    CAELYLE. 

will  advise  him  first  of  all  that  a  reconciliation  with 
yon,  if  any  ground  he  feels  feasible  were  offered, 
would   seem   to   me  by  far  the  desirablest   course. 

With  kind  regards  to ,  to  whom,  indeed,  as  much 

as  to  you,  these  remarks  address  themselves,  in  great 
haste,  yours,  always  truly,  T.  Caelyle. 

"  We  have  been  here  with  country  friends  near  a 
month,  and  are  not  to  be  in  Chelsea,  I  imagine,  for 
some  ten  days.  T.  C." 

34. 

TO   ALEXANDER   lEELAND. 

"Chelsea,  October  15,  1847. 

"My  dear  Sir, — By  a  letter  I  had  very  lately 
from  Emerson — which  had  lain,  lost  and  never 
missed,  for  above  a  month  in  the  treacherous  post- 
office  of  Buxton,  where  it  was  called  for  and  de- 
nied—I  learn  that  Emerson  intended  to  sail  for  this 
country  '  about  the  first  of  October,'  and  infer  there- 
fore that  probably  even  now  he  is  near  Liverpool  or 
some  other  of  our  ports.  Treadmill,  or  other  as  em- 
phatic admonition,  to  that  scandalous  postmaster  of 
Buxton !  He  has  put  me  in  extreme  risk  of  doing 
one  of  the  most  unfriendly  and  every  way  unpar- 
donable-looking things  a  man  could  do. 

*'Not  knowing  in  the  least  to  what  port  Emerson 
is  tending,  where  he  is  expected,  or  what  his  first 
engagements  are,  I  find  no  way  of  making  my  word 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  215 

audible  to  him  in  time,  except  that  of  intrusting  it, 
with  solemn  charges,  to  you,  as  here.  Pray  do  me 
the  favor  to  contrive  in  some  sure  way  that  Emerson 
may  get  hold  of  that  note  the  instant  he  lands  in 
England.  I  shall  be  permanently  grieved  otherwise ; 
shall  have  failed  in  a  clear  duty  (were  it  nothing 
more)  which  will  never  probably  in  my  life  offer 
itself  again.  Do  not  neglect,  I  beg  very  much  of 
you ;  and,  on  the  whole,  if  you  can  get  Emerson  put 
safe  into  the  express  train,  and  shot  up  hither,  as  the 
first  road  he  goes!  That  is  the  result  we  aim  at. 
But  the  note  itself,  at  all  events,  I  pray  you  get  that 
delivered  duly,  and  so  do  me  a  very  great  favor  for 
which  I  depend  on  you. 

"  It  is  yet  only  two  days  since  I  got  home,  through 
Keswick  and  the  Lake  country ;  nor  has  my  head  yet 
fairly  settled  from  the  whirl  of  so  many  objects,  and 
such  rapid  whirls  of  locomotion,  outward  and  in- 
ward, as  the  late  weeks  have  exposed  me  to.  To- 
day, therefore,  I  restrict  myself  to  the  indispensable, 
and  will  add  nothing  more. 

"  Kind  regards  to  Ballantyne  and  Espinasse.  Hope 
your  School  Society  prospers.  Glad  shall  I  be  to 
learn  that  your  scheme,  or  any  rational  or  even  semi- 
rational  scheme,  for  that  most  urgently  needful  ob- 
ject, promises  to  take  effect  among  those  dusty  pop- 
ulations! Of  your  Program,  as  probably  I  men- 
tioned, there  remains  with  me  no  copy  now. 

"  Yours  very  truly,  T.  Cakltle." 


216  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

35. 

"Chelsea,  March  18, 1863. 

"Deak  Ikeland, — I  am  glad  to  hear  from  you 
again,  and  much  obliged  for  those  two  portraits  of 
Emerson.  The  painted  one  I  cannot  endure,  but 
the  actual  shadow  of  the  sun  (who  aims  at  nothing 
but  the  truth)  is  beautiful,  and  really  interesting  to 
me.  Wonderfully  little  oldened;  has  got  a  black 
wig,  I  see ;  nothing  else  changed ! 

"  Two  or  three  weeks  ago  there  was  forwarded  to 
me  a  clipping  from  a  Manchester  newspaper  (the  Ex- 
aminer, I  think) — some  letter  from  somebody  about 
a  wonderful  self-condemnatory  MS.  by  Frederick 
the  Great,  gathered  at  Berlin  by  some  Duke  of  Ro- 
vigo,  for  the  endless  gratitude  of  the  curious.  I  had 
not  heard  of  the  monstrous  platitude  at  all  till  then, 
but  guessed  then  what  it  would  be — an  old  acquaint- 
ance of  mine,  truly  a  thrice-brutal  stupidity,  which 
has  had  red-hot  pokers  indignantly  run  through  it 
about  ten  times,  but  always  revives  and  steps  forth 
afresh  with  new  tap  of  the  parish  drum — ^^there  being 
no  *  parish'  in  the  universe  richer  in  prurient  dark- 
ness and  flunkey  malevolence  than  ours  is!  I  set 
Neuberg  upon  it,  in  the  Athenmum,  but  know  not 
what  he  made  of  it.  No  editor,  in  my  time,  has 
crowned  himself  with  such  a  pair  of  ears  as  he  of  the 
Williams  and  Korgate  periodical.     It  is  a  clear  fact, 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  217 

though  not  clear  in  England,  that  here  is  the  most 
brutal  of  moon-calves  lately  heard  of  in  any  coun- 
try;  that  to  have  one  moment's  belief,  or  doubt,  on 
such  a  subject  is  to  make  affidavit  that  your  knowl- 
edge of  Frederick  and  his  affairs  is  zero  and  less. 
Would  to  Heaven  I  were  '  done  with  them !'  I  never 
in  my  life  was  held  in  such  hurry — to  last  six  months 
yet.  Yours  ever,  T.  Caelyle." 

36* 

TO   A  YOUNG   LADY   FRIEND. 
"5  Great  Chetne  Koav,  Chelsea,  21sf,  1866. 

"  Dear  young  Lady, — Your  appeal  to  me  is  very 
touching,  and  I  am  heartily  sorry  for  you,  if  I  could 
but  help  at  all.  In  very  great  want  of  time,  among 
other  higher  requisites,  I  write  a  few  words,  which,  I 
hope,  may  at  least  do  no  harm,  if  they  can  do  little 
good.  Herein,  as  in  many  other  cases,  the  *  patient 
must  minister  unto  himself;'  no  best  of  doctors  can 
do  much.  The  grand  remedy  against  such  spiritual 
maladies  and  torments  is  to  rise  upon  them  vigor- 
ously from  without,  in  the  way  of  practical  work 

*  This  letter  is  not  in  Mr.  Ireland's  collection.  It  was  written  to  a 
lady  of  my  acquaintance  when  she  was  quite  a  yonng  girl.  She  had 
passed  into  a  somewhat  morbid  state  of  mind  and  feeling  about  her- 
self, and  wrote  to  the  man  who  appeared  to  her  almost  a  prophet. 
The  letter  reveals  that  tenderness  of  Carlyle  towards  the  young  which 
was  really  the  unsatisfied  part  of  his  nature,  as  I  believe  was  recog- 
nized by  him  towards  the  last. — M.  D.  C. 

10 


218  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

and^  performance.  Our  thoughts,  good  or  bad,  are 
not  in  our  command,  but  every  one  of  iis  has  at  all 
hours  duties  to  do^  and  these  he  can  do  negligently, 
like  a  slave ;  or  faithfully,  like  a  true  servant.  '  Do 
the  duty  that  is  nearest  thee ' — that  first,  and  that 
well;  all  the  rest  will  disclose  themselves  with  in- 
creasing clearness,  and  make  their  successive  demand. 
Were  your  duties  never  so  small,  I  advise  you,  set 
yourself  with  double  and  treble  energy  and  punctu- 
ality to  do  them,  hour  after  hour,  day  after  day,  in 
spite  of  the  devil's  teeth !  That  is  our  one  answer  to 
all  inward  devils,  as  they  used  to  be  called.  ^  This 
I  can  do,  O  Devil,  and  I  do  it,  thou  seest,  in  the  name 
of  God.'  It  is  astonishing  and  beautiful  what  swift 
exorcism  lies  in  this  course  of  proceeding,  and  how 
at  the  first  real  glimpse  of  it  all  foul  spirits  and 
sickly  torments  prepare  to  vanish. 

"  I  hope  you  will  not  often  have  experience  of  this, 
poor  child.  And  don't  object  that  your  duties  are 
so  insignificant ;  they  are  to  be  reckoned  of  infinite 
significance  and  alone  imj)ortant  to  you.  Were  it 
but  the  more  perfect  regulation  of  your  apartments, 
the  sorting-away  of  your  clothes  and  trinkets,  the 
arranging  of  your  papers — 'Whatsoever  thy  hand 
findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  all  thy  might,'  and  all  thy 
worth  and  constancy.  Much  more,  if  your  duties 
are  of  evidently  higher,  wider  scope ;  if  you  have 
brothers,  sisters,  a  father,  a  mother,  weigh  earnestly 


THOMAS    CAELYLE.  219 

wliat  claim  does  lie  upon  yon,  on  behalf  of  each,  and 
consider  it  as  the  one  thing  needful,  to  pay  tliem 
more  and  more  honestly  and  nobly  what  you  owe. 
What  matter  how  miserable  one  is,  if  one  can  do 
that?  That  is  the  sure  and  steady  disconnection 
and  extinction  of  whatsoever  miseries  one  has  in 
this  world.  Other  spiritual  medicine  I  never  do  dis- 
cover ;  neither,  I  believe,  does  other  exist,  or  need  to 
exist. 

"  For  the  rest,  dear  child,  you  are  evidently  too 
severe  upon  yourself;  these  bad  thoughts  don't  make 
you  a  '  wicked  girl,'  not  until  you  yield  to  them  ;  the 
excess  of  your  remorse  and  self-abhorrence  is  itself 
proof  of  some  height  of  nobleness  in  you.  We  have 
all  of  us  to  be  taught  by  stripes^  by  sufferings — won't 
learn  otherwise.  Courage,  courage !  As  to  fasting, 
penance,  etc.,  that  is  all  become  a  ghastly  matter ; 
have  nothing  to  do  with  that ;  woi'Tc^  worh,  and  be 
careful  about  nothing  else.  Choose-  with  your  ut- 
most skill  among  your  companions  and  coevals  some 
real  associates;  be  not  too  much  alone  with  your 
thoughts,  w^hich  are  by  nature  bottomless.  Finally, 
be  careful  of  your  health ;  bodily  ill-health,  unknown 
to  your  inexperience,  may  have  much  to  do  with  the 
miseries.     Farewell.  T.  Cablyle." 


220  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

37. 

EALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  TO  ALEXANDER  IRELAND. 
"Liverpool,  August  30,  1833. 

*'  My  DEAR  Sir, — A  shower  of  rain,  which  ]iinders 
mj  visiting,  gives  me  an  opportunity  of  fulfilling  my 
promise  to  send  you  an  account  of  my  visit  to  Mr. 
Carlyle  and  to  Mr.  Wordsworth.  I  was  fortunate 
enough  to  find  both  of  them  at  home.  Mr.  C.  lives 
among  some  desolate  hills  in  the  parish  of  Dnnscore, 
fifteen  or  sixteen  miles  from  Dumfries.  He  had 
heard  of  my  purpose  from  his  friend  who  gave  me 
my  letter,  and  insisted  on  dismissing  my  gig,  which 
went  back  to  Dumfries  to  return  for  me  the  next 
day  in  time  to  secure  my  seat  in  the  evening  coach 
for  the  South.  So  I  spent  near  twenty-four  hours 
with  him.  He  lives  with  his  wife,  a  most  agreeable 
and  accomplished  woman,  in  perfect  solitude.  There 
is  not  a  person  to  speak  to  within  seven  miles.  He 
is  the  most  simple,  frank,  amiable  person.  I  became 
acquainted  with  him  at  once ;  we  walked  over  sev- 
eral miles  of  hills  and  talked  upon  all  the  great  ques- 
tions which  interest  us  most.  The  comfort  of  meet- 
ing a  man  of  genius  is  that  he  speaks  sincerely,  that 
he  feels  himself  to  be  so  rich  that  he  is  above  the 
meanness  of  pretending  to  knowledge  which  he  has 
not;  and  Carljde  does  not  pretend  to  have  solved 
the  great  problems,  but  rather  to  be  an  observer  of 


THOMAS    CAELYLE.  221 

their  solution  as  it  goes  forward  in  the  world.  I 
asked  him  at  what  religious  development  the  con- 
cluding passage  in  his  piece  in  the  Edinburgh  Beview 
upon  German  literature  (say  five  years  ago),  and 
some  passages  in  the  piece  called  '  Characteristics,' 
pointed.  He  replied  that  he  was  not  competent  to 
state  it  even  to  himself;  he  wanted  rather  to  see. 
My  own  feeling  was  that  I  had  met  with  men  of  far 
less  power  who  had  yet  greater  insight  into  religious 
truth.  He  is,  as  you  might  guess  from  his  papers, 
the  most  catholic  of  philosophers ;  he  forgives  and 
loves  everybody,  and  wishes  each  to  struggle  on  in 
his  own  place  and  arrive  at  his  own  ends.  But  his 
respect  for  eminent  men,  or  rather  his  scale  of  emi- 
nence, is  rather  the  reverse  of  the  popular  scale. 
Scott,  Mackintosh,  Jeffrey,  Gibbon — even  Bacon — 
are  no  heroes  of  his.  Stranger  yet,  he  hardly  ad- 
mires Socrates,  the  glory  of  the  Greek  world ;  but 
Burns  and  Samuel  Johnson.  Mirabeau,  he  said,  in- 
terested him ;  and  I  suppose  whoever  else  has  given 
himself  with  all  his  heart  to  a  leading  instinct,  and 
has  not  calculated  too  much.  But  I  cannot  think  of 
sketching  even  his  opinions,  or  repeating  his  conver- 
sation here.  I  will  cheerfully  do  it  when  you  visit 
me  in  America.  He  talks  finely,  seems  to  love  the 
broad  Scotch,  and  I  loved  him  very  much  at  once.  I 
am  afraid  he  finds  his  entire  solitude  tedious ;  but  I 
could  not  help  congratulating  him  upon  his  treasure 


222  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

in  Ills  wife,  and  I  hope  tliey  will  not  leave  the  moors, 
'tis  so  much  better  for  a  man  of  letters  to  nurse  him- 
self in  seclusion  than  to  be  filed  down  to  the  com- 
mon level  by  the  compliances  and  imitations  of  city 
society. 

"The  third  day  afterwards  I  called  upon  Mr. 
Wordsworth  at  Eydal  Mount.  He  received  me 
with  much  kindness,  and  remembered  up  all  his 
American  acquaintance.  He  had  very  much  to  say 
about  the  evils  of  superficial  education,  both  in  this 
country  and  in  mine.  He  thinks  the  intellectual 
tuition  of  society  is  going  on  out  of  all  proportion 
faster  than  its  moral  training,  which  last  is  essential 
to  all  education.  He  doesn't  wish  to  hear  of  schools 
of  tuition ;  it  is  the  education  of  circumstances  which 
he  values,  and  much  more  to  this  point.  He  says 
that  he  is  not  in  haste  to  publish  more  poetry,  for 
many  reasons;  but  that  what  he  has  written  will  at 
some  time  be  given  to  the  world.  He  led  me  out 
into  a  walk  in  his  grounds,  where,  he  said,  many 
thousands  of  his  lines  were  composed,  and  repeated 
to  me  those  beautiful  sonnets  which  he  has  just  fin- 
ished, upon  the  occasion  of  his  recent  visit  to  Fin- 
gal's  Cave  at  Staffa.  I  hope  he  will  print  them 
speedily.  The  third  is  a  gem.  He  was  so  benevo- 
lently anxious  to  impress  upon  me  my  social  duties 
as  an  American  citizen  that  he  accompanied  me  near 
a  mile  from  his  house,  talking  vehemently,  and  ever 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  223 

and  anon  stopping  short  to  imprint  liis  words.  I 
noted  down  some  of  his  words  when  I  got  home,  and 
you  may  see  them  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  when 
you  will.  I  enjoyed  both  my  visits  highly,  and  shall 
always  esteem  your  Britain  very  highly  in  love  for 
its  wise  and  good  men's  sake.  I  remember  with 
much  pleasure  my  visit  to  Edinburgh,  and  my  short 
acquaintance  with  yourself.  It  will  give  me  great 
pleasure  to  hear  from  you — to  know  your  thoughts. 
Every  man  that  was  ever  born  has  some  that  are  pe- 
culiar. Present  my  respects  to  your  father  and  fam- 
ily.    Your  friend  and  servant, 

"  E.  Waldo  Emeeson." 


Part  IV. 

LETTERS  ADDRESSED  TO 

Mrs.  basil  MONTAGU  and  B.  W.  PROCTER 

BY 

Me.  THOMAS   CAELYLE 


10* 


LETTERS  OF  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

ADDRESSED  TO 

Mrs.  basil  MONTAGU  and  B.  W.  PEOCTER. 


TO  MK3.  MONTAGU,  25  BEDFORD  SQUARE,  LONDON. 

"Mainhill,  Ecclefechan,  20th  May,  1825. 

"  My  dear  Madam, — I  were  inexcusable  had  tliis 
long  silence  been  wilful:  the  kind  and  delightful 
letter  Tvhich  you  sent  me  merited  at  least  a  prompt 
and  thankful  answer.  Your  generous  anxieties  for 
my  welfare  should  not  have  been  met  by  months  of 
total  silence.  My  apology  is  a  trite  but  yet  a  faithful 
one.  Your  letter  reached  me,  after  various  retarda- 
tions, in  a  scene  of  petty  business  and  petty  engage- 
ment; and  I  had  no  choice  but  either  to  write  inani- 
ties in  reply  to  elegant  and  friendly  sense,  or  to  wait 
w^th  patience  for  a  calmer  day. 

"  That  calmer  day  has  not  yet  come.  Ever  since  I 
left  you  I  have  been  so  shifted  and  shovelled  to  and 
fro  among  men  and  things  of  the  most  discordant 
character   that   my  thoughts    have   altogether   lost 


228  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

their  regular  arrangement.  The  small  citadel  of  my 
intellectual  identity  has  almost  yielded  to  so  many 
inroads ;  at  least  the  garrison,  weary  of  never-ending 
battle  and  imperfect  conquest,  have  now  locked  the 
gates,  and  scarcely  ever  sally  out  at  all.  I  live  with- 
out thinking  or  theorizing,  as  the  passing  hour  directs ; 
and  any  tru^  exprei^sion  of  myself  in  writing,  or  even 
speech,  is  a  problem  of  unusual  difficulty.  You  see 
my  situation :  1  have  been  disturbed  and  dissipated 
till  I  have  become  exhausted  and  stupid.  Yesterday 
I  was  buying  chairs  and  curtains,  and  even  crockery, 
and  there  is  still  no  rest  till  three  weeks  after  Whit- 
sunday !  Add  to  all  this  that  three  days  ago,  in 
cutting  sticks  for  certain  rows  of  peas  which  I  am 
cultivating  here,  I  tore  my  thumb,  so  that  it  winces 
every  line  I  write !  But  can  the  Ethiopian  change 
his  skin,  or  the  dolt  his  dulness,  by  confession  and 
complaint?  I  had  much  rather  you  should  think 
me  stupid  than  ungrateful ;  so  I  write  to-day  without 
further  explanation  or  apology,  which  would  but  ag- 
gravate the  evil  either  way.  When  I  think  of  all 
your  conduct  towards  me,  I  confess  I  am  forced  to 
pronounce  it  magnanimous.  From  the  first,  you 
had  faith  enough  in  human  nature  to  believe  that 
under  the  vinegar  surface  of  an  atrabiliar  character 
there  might  lurk  some  touch  of  principle  and  affec- 
tion ;  notwithstanding  my  repulsive  aspect,  you  fol- 
lowed me  with  unwearied  kindness,  while  near  you; 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 


and  now  that  I  am  far  off,  and  you  suspect  me  of 
stealing  from  you  the  spirit  of  your  most  vahied 
friend,  you  still  think  tenderly  of  me ;  you  send  me 
cheering  words  into  my  solitude.  Amid  these  rude 
moors  a  little  dove-like  messenger  arrives  to  tell  me 
that  I  am  not  forgotten,  that  I  still  live  in  the  mem- 
ories and  wishes  -of  some  noble  s^uls.  i^elieve  me,  I 
am  not  unthankful  for  this  ;  I  am, poor  in  heart,  but 
not  entirely  a  bankrupt.  There  are  moments  when 
the  thought  of  these  things  makes  me  ten  years 
younger,  when  I  feel  with  what  fervid  gratitude  I 
should  have  welcomed  sympathy,  or  the  veiy  show 
of  sympathy,  from  such  a  quarter,  had  it  then  been 
offered  me ;  and  vow  that  yet^  changed  as  matters 
are,  you  shall  not  escape  me,  that  I  will  yet  under- 
stand you  and  love  you,  and  be  understood  and  loved 
by  you.  I  did  you  injustice ;  I  never  saw  you  till 
about  to  lose  yon.  Base  Judean  that  I  was !  Can 
you  forgive  without  forgetting  me?  I  hope  yet  to 
be  near  you  long  and  often,  and  to  taste  in  your 
society  the  purest  pleasure,  that  of  fellow-feeling 
with  a  generous  and  cultivated  mind.  How  rare  it 
is  in  life,  and  what  were  life  without  it !  Forgive' 
me  if  you  can.  If  my  affection  and  gratitude  have 
any  value  in  your  eyes,  you  are  like  to  be  no  loser 
by  my  error.  I  felt  it  before  I  left  you ;  I  feel  it  still 
more  deeply  now. 

"  I  must  also  entreat  you  to  free  me  from  the  charge 


230  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

of  alienating  Mr.  Irving  from  the  friend  whom  he 
should  value  most.  I  have  no  such  influence  as  you 
ascribe  to  me ;  and  if  I  had,  I  hope  I  should  be  sorry 
so  to  use  it.  Edward  Irving  must  be  blind  indeed 
if  he  does  not  see  that  you  love  him  with  the  affec- 
tion of  a  mother ;  and  he  were  no  longer  my  Edward 
if  this  itself  did  not  bind  him  to  you.  Depend  on 
it,  ray  dear  madam,  for  this  time  you  are  wrong. 
Our  friend  does  not  love  you  or  esteem  you  less :  it 
is  only  his  multifarious  purposes  and  ever-shifting 
avocations  that  change  the  outward  aspect  of  his  con- 
duct. He  was  my  earliest,  almost  my  only  friend, 
and  yet  for  two  years  after  he  began  to  reign  among 
you,  I  could  not  wring  a  single  letter  from  him ! 
You  must  tolerate  such  things  in  him,  and  still  be 
kind  to  him,  and  not  forsake  him ;  in  his  present  cir- 
cumstances, however  it   may  fare  with  him,  your 

counsel  might  be  doubly  precious.     For  Mrs. 

also  I  must  say  a  friendly  word.  She  does  not  hate 
you ;  she  respects  you,  and  desires  your  friendship. 
Will  you  believe  that  I  had  actually  engaged  to  be 
her  mediator  with  you,  and  to  bring  about  an  inti- 
macy which  I  saw  might  be  so  profitable  to  her ! 
On  a  narrower  inspection,  I  renounced  the  project  in 
despair ;  yet  I  feel  convinced  you  would  like  her, 
were  she  fully  known  to  you.  That  you  disagreed 
at  first  cannot  be  strange  to  me  ;  her  primary  impres- 
sion of  you  was  in  some  degree  like  my  own,  and  you 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  231 

had  not  the  toleration  for  her  inexperience  which 
you  had  for  mine.  I  confess  I  have  still  some  hope 
from  the  flight  of  years ;  where  one  sees  a  want  and 
the  means  of  supplying  it,  one  would  gladly  bring 

about  a  combination.     Had  you   been  Mrs. 's 

sister,  she  had  never  been  a  mystic  devotee,  and 
never  trod  the  thorny  paths  through  which  her  ve- 
hement, sincere,  and  misdirected  spirit  is  struggling 
after  what,  in  all  its  forms,  is  the  highest  aim  of 
mortals — Moral  Truth.  But  the  [letter  torn]  judg- 
ment of  character  must  be  fallible  in  your  eyes! 
[torn]  will  go  for  nothing. 

"But  ill-success  in  this  attempt  does  not  deter  me 
from  a  new  one.  You  know  Miss  Welsh  of  Hadding- 
ton, if  not  in  name,  at  least  in  character  and  from  her 
fiiends.  I  was  with  her  at  her  mother's  when  you 
wrote  to  me.  Jane  knew  the  writer  by  the  portrai- 
ture of  two  not  unfriendly  friends,  admired  and  liked 
the  letter,  and  begged  of  me  to  let  her  keep  it. 

"  She  had  refused  an  invitation  to  Pentonville :  one 
of  her  chief  regrets  in  declining  it  was  the  veto  put 
on  her  commencing  an  acquaintance  with  you. 

"  She  asked  would  you  not  write  to  her.  I  engaged 
to  try,  and  now  will  you  ?    Can  you  ? 

"  This  young  lady  is  a  person  whom  you  will  love 
and  tend  ^s  a  daughter  when  you  meet ;  an  ardent, 
generous,  gifted  being,  banished  to  the  pettinesses  of 
a  country  town  ;  loving,  adoring  the  excellent  in  all 


232  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

its  phases,  but  without  models,  advisers,  or  sympathy. 
Six  years  ago  she  lost  her  father,  the  only  person 
who  had  ever  understood  her :  since  that  hour  she 
has  never  mentioned  his  name ;  she  never  alludes  to 
him  yet  without  an  agony  of  tears. 

"  It  was  Mr.  Irving's  wish,  and  mine,  and,  most  of 
all,  her  own,  to  have  you  for  her  friend ;  that  she 
should  live  beside  you  till  she  understood  you ;  that 
she  might  have  at  least  one  model  to  study,  one 
woman  with  a  mind  as  warm  and  rich  to  show  her 
by  living  example  how  the  most  complex  destiny 
might  be  wisely  managed.  Separated  by  space,  could 
you  draw  near  to  one  another  by  the  imperfect 
medium  of  letters  ?  Jane  thinks  it  w^ould  abate  the 
'  awe '  which  she  must  necessarily  feel  on  first  meet- 
ing with  you  personally.  She  wishes  it ;  I  also  if  it 
were  attainable :  is  it  not  ? 

"  I  should  now  depict  my  doings  and  my  circum- 
stances, my  farming  and  my  gardening,  literature 
and  dietetics.  All  this  demands  another  sheet,  which 
I  trust  you  will  very  soon  afford  me  opportunity  of 
sending.  I  am  getting  healthier  and  happier,  living 
by  the  strictest  letter  of  the  Badamian  Code,  and 
hoping  steadfastly  to  conquer  the  baleful  monster 
which  has  crushed  me  to  the  dust  so  long.  Do  write 
as  soon  as  possible ;  and  do  not  pay  the  postage. 

"  I  am  unjust  to  you  no  more,  but  ever  most  sin- 
cerely yours,  Thomas  Carlyle." 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  233 

"  You  will  make  my  best  respects  to  Mr.  Montagu, 
and  to  Mrs.  and  Mr.  Procter.  The  latter,  I  hope,  will 
by-and-by  bethink  him  of  his  promise,  and  let  me 
have  a  sheet  of  literary  news. 

"  Is  my  dear  Badams  with  you  ?  Did  you  get  the 
book  I  sent  for  liim  ?  Excuse  this  miserable  letter.  I 
am  sick  and  in  confusion.   I^ext  time  I  will  do  better." 


TO  MRS.  MONTAGU,  25  BEDFORD  SQUARE,  LONDON. 
"21  CoMLET  Bank,  2oth  December,  182G. 

"My  DEAR  Madam, — At  length  my  most  nervous 
bookseller  has  determined,  even  in  these  *  worst  of 
times,'  as  he  calls  them,  on  sending  forth  his  literary 
cargo ;  an  heroic  resolution,  which  he  has  not  adopted 
till  after  the  most  painful  consultation,  and  after  cal- 
culating as  if  by  astrological  science  the  propitious 
day  and  minute  indicated  by  the  horoscope  of  the 
work.  I  know  not  whether  it  is  risht  to  lau^rh  at 
this  poor  profit-and-loss  philosopher  in  his  pitiable 
quandary ;  for  his  one  true  God  being  Mammon,  he 
does  worship  him  with  an  edifying  devoutness ;  but, 
at  all  events,  I  may  rejoice  that  this  favorable  con- 
junction of  the  stars  has  at  length  actually  occurred, 
which  after  four  months'  imprisonment  in  Ballan- 
tyne's  warehouses  now  takes  this  feeble  concern 
finally  off  my  hands,  and  enables  me,  among  many 
other  important  duties,  to  discharge  not  the  least 
important  one — that  of  paying  my  debt  to  you. 


234:  THOMAS   CAELTLE. 

"  I  have  really  owed  you  long,  but  you  are  a  patient 
creditor,  and  know  too,  I  am  persuaded,  that  though 
letters  are  the  symbol  of  attention  and  regard,  the 
thing  signified  may  often  exist  in  full  strength  with- 
out the  sign.  Indeed,  indeed,  my  dear  madam,  I  am 
not  mad  enough  to  forget  you :  the  more  I  see  of  the 
world  and  myself  the  less  tendency  have  I  that  way, 
the  more  do  I  feel  that  in  this  my  wilderness  journey 
I  have  found  but  one  Mrs.  Montagu,  and  that,  except 
in  virtue  of  peculiar  good-fortune,  I  had  no  right  to 
calculate  on  even  finding  one.  A  hundred  times  do 
I  regret  that  you  are  not  here,  or  I  there  :  but  I  say 
to  myself,  we  shall  surely  meet  again  on  this  side  the 
wall  of  E'ight ;  and  you  will  find  me  wiser,  and  I  shall 
know  you  better,  and  love  and  reverence  you  more. 
Meantime,  as  conscience  whispers,  what  are  protesta- 
tions ?  E'othing,  or  worse  than  nothing :  therefore 
let  us  leave  them. 

"  Of  my  late  history  I  need  not  speak,  for  you  al- 
ready know  it:  I  am  wedded ;  to  the  best  of  wives, 
and  with  all  the  elements  of  enjoyment  richly  min- 
istered to  me,  and  health — rather  worse  than  even 
it  was  wont  to  be.  Sad  contradiction  !  But  I  were 
no  apt  scholar  if  I  had  not  learned  long  ago,  with 
my  friend  Tieck,  that  Mn  the  fairest  sunshine  a 
shadow  chases  us ;  that  in  the  softest  music  there  is 
a  tone  which  chides.' 

"  I  sometimes  hope  that  I  shall  be  well :  at  other 


THOMAS    CARLYLE.  235 

times  I  determine  to  be  icise  in  spite  of  sickness, 
and  feel  that  wisdom  is  better  even  than  health ;  and 
I  dismiss  ths  lying  cozener  Hope  entirely,  and  fan- 
cy I  perceive  that  even  the  rocky  land  of  Sorrow  is 
not  without  a  heavenly  radiance  overspreading  it, 
lovelier  than  aught  that  this  Earth,  with  all  its  joys, 
can  give  us.  At  all  events,  what  right  have  we  to 
murmur?  It  is  the  common  lot:  the  Persian  King 
could  not  find  three  happy  men  in  the  wide  world 
to  write  the  names  of  on  his  queen's  tomb,  or  the 
Philosopher  would  have  recalled  her  from  death. 
Every  son  of  Adam  has  his  task  to  toil  at,  and  his 
stripes  to  bear  for  doing  it  wrong.  There  is  one 
deadly  error  we  commit  at  our  entrance  on  life,  and 
sooner  or  later  we  must  lay  it  aside,  for  till  then 
there  is  neither  peace  nor  rest  for  us  in  this  world : 
vre  all  start,  I  have  observed,  with  the "  tacit  per- 
suasion that  whatever  become  of  others,  we  (the 
illustrious  all-important  we)  are  entitled  of  inght  to 
be  entirely  fortunate^  to  accumulate  all  knowledge, 
beauty,  health,  and  earthly  felicity  in  ou7'  sacred 
person,  and  so  pass  our  most  sovereign  days  in  rosy 
bowers,  with  Distress  never  seen  by  us,  except  as  an 
interesting  shade  in  the  distance  of  our  landscape. 
Alas!  what  comes  of  it?  Providence  will  not  treat 
us  thus — nay,  with  reverence  be  it  spoken,  cannot 
treat  us  thus;  and  so  we  fight  and  fret  against  His 
laws,  and  cease  not  from  our  mad,  harassing  deln- 


236  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

sion  till  Experience  have  beaten  it  out  of  us  with 
many  chastisements. 

''Most,  indeed,  never  fully  unlearn  it  all  their  days, 
but  continue  to  the  last  to  believe  that  in  their  lot 
in  life  they  are  unjustly  treated,  and  cease  not  from 
foolish  hopes,  and  still  stand  in  new  amazement  that 
they  should  be  disappointed — so  very  strangely,  so 
unfairly!  This  class  is  certainly  the  most  pitiable 
of  all,  for  an  Action  of  Damages  against  Providence 
is  surely  no  promising  lawsuit. 

"But  I  must  descend  from  Life  in  general  to  Life 
in  Edinburgh.  Li  spite  of  ill-health,  I  reckon  my- 
self moderately  happy  here,  much  happier  than  men 
usually  are,  or  than  such  a  fool  as  I  deserves  to  be. 
My  good  wife  exceeds  all  my  hopes,  and  is  in  truth, 
I  believe,  among  the  best  women  that  the  world 
contains.  The  philosophy  of  the  heart  is  far  better 
than  that  of  the  understanding.  She  loves  me  with 
her  whole  soul,  and  this  one  sentiment  has  taught 
her  much  that  I  have  long  been  vainly  at  the 
Schools  to  learn.  Good  Jane!  She  is  sitting  by 
me  knitting  you  a  purse:  you  must  not  cease  to 
love  her,  for  she  deserves  it,  and  few  love  you  bet- 
ter. Of  society,  in  this  modern  Athens,  we  have  no 
want,  but  rather  a  superabundance,  which,  however, 
we  are  fast  and  successfully  reducing  down  to  the 
fit  measure.  True  it  is,  one  meets  with  many  a 
Turk  in  grain  among  these  people ;  but  it  is  some 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  237 

comfort  to  know  beforehand  that  Turks  are,  have 
been,  and  forever  will  be;  and  to  understand  that 
from  a  Turk  no  Christian  word  or  deed  can  ration- 
ally be  expected.  Let  the  people  speak  in  the  Turk- 
ish dialect,  in  Heaven's  name !  It  is  their  own,  and 
they  have  no  other.  A  better  class  of  persons,  too, 
are  to  be  found  here  and  there;  a  sober,  discreet, 
logic -loving,  moderately  well-informed  class:  with 
these  I  talk  and  enjoy  myself;  but  only  talk  as  from 
an  upper  window  to  people  on  the  street;  into  the 
house  (of  my  spirit)  I  cannot  admit  them ;  and  the 
unwise  wonderment  they  exhibit  when  I  do  but 
show  them  the  lobby  warns  me  to  lose  no  time  in 
again  slamming  to  the  door.  But  what  of  society? 
Round  our  own  hearth  is  society  enough,  with  a 
blessing.  I  read  books,  or  like  the  Eoman  poet  and 
so  many  British  ones,  'disport  on  paper;'  and  many 
a  still  evening  when  I  stand  in  our  little  flower-gar- 
den (it  is  fully  larger  than  two  bedquilts),  and  smoke 
my  pipe  in  peace,  and  look  at  the  reflection  of  the 
distant  city  lamps,  and  hear  the  faint  murmur  of  its 
tumult,  I  feel  no  little  pleasure  in  the  thought  of 
'  my  own  four  walls,'  and  what  they  hold. 

"  On  the  whole,  what  I  chiefly  want  is  occupation ; 
which  when  Hhe  times  grow  better,'  or  my  own  'gen- 
ius' gets  more  alert  and  thorough-going,  will  not  fail, 
I  suppose,  to  present  itself.  Idle  I  am  not  altogeth- 
er, yet  not  occupied  as  I  should  be ;  for  to  dig  in 


238  THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 

the  mines  of  Plntns,  and  sell  tlie  gift  of  God  (and 
such  is  every  man's  small  fraction  of  intellectual  tal- 
ent) for  a  piece  of  money  is  a  measure  I  am  not  in- 
clined to ;  and  for  invention^  for  Art  of  any  sort,  I 
feel  myself  too  helpless  and  undetermined.  Some 
day — oh  that  the  day  were  here!  —  I  shall  surely 
speak  out  these  things  that  are  lying  in  me,  and 
giving  me  no  sleep  till  they  are  spoken !  Or  else 
if  the  Fates  would  be  so  kind  as  show  me — that  I 
had  nothing  to  say !  This,  perhaps,  is  the  real  secret 
of  it,  after  all;  a  hard  result,  yet  not  intolerable,  were 
it  once  clear  and  certain.  Literature,  it  seems,  is  to 
be  my  trade ;  but  the  present  aspects  of  it  among  us 
seem  to  me  peculiarly  perplexed  and  uninviting.  I 
love  it  not :  in  fact,  I  have  almost  quitted  modern 
reading;  lower  down  than  the  Restoration  I  rarely 
venture  in  English.  These  men,  these  Hookers,  Ba- 
cons, Brownes,  were  men;  but  for  our  present  *men 
of  letters,'  our  dandy  wits,  our  utilitarian  philoso- 
phers, our  novel,  play,  sonnet,  and  song  manufactur- 
ers, I  shall  only  say.  May  the  Lord  pity  us  and  them  1 
But  enough  of  this !  For  what  am  I  that  I  should 
censure  ?    Less  than  the  least  in  Israel. 

"  It  is  time  that  I  devote  a  word  or  two  to  others, 
having  spent  the  whole  sheet  on  myself.  You  say 
nothing  of  your  health:  am  I  to  consider  you  as 
recovered  ?  I  dare  scarcely  believe  it :  yet  perhaps 
you  are  recovering.     Alas!   sorrow  has  long  been 


THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

familiar  to  you ;  and  ill-health  is  but  one  of  the 
many  forms  under  which  it  too  frequently  pursues 
such  beings  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  But  the 
heart,  too,  according  to  the  old  similitude,  is  some- 
times like  a  spicy  flower,  which  yields  not  its  sweet- 
est perfume  till  it  be  crushed.  Of  Charles's  history 
at  Cambridge  I  am  sorry  to  hear,  though  it  does  not 
surprise  me  much,  or  in  any  wise  diminish  my  faith 
in  his  character  and  capabilities.  It  shows  only  that, 
venerating  Science,  and  this  alone,  he  has  formed 
too  lofty  an  estimate  of  its  Expositors  and  Institu- 
tions: he  looked  for  Sages,  such  as  are  not  to  be 
found  on  this  clay  planet ;  he  meets  with  Drivellers, 
and  his  heart  is  too  proud  to  yield  their  gowns  and 
maces  w^iat  it  denies  their  minds.  He  is  far  too 
proud,  poor  fellow ;  and  that  is  a  failing  which  he 
must  and  will  lay  aside.  But  what  is  to  be  done  with 
him  for  the  present  ?  At  Cambridge,  in  his  present 
mood,  he  must  not  continue ;  in  Edinburgh  I  durst 
not  predict  his  fate:  he  might  find  the  right  road,  or 
deviate  farther  from  it  than  ever.  Asjain  and  afjain  I 
say,  if  I  can  be  of  any  service,  command  me.  And  in 
the  meanwhile  fear  not  for  your  stormf ul,  headstrong, 
high-minded  boy.  There  is  metal  in  him  which  no 
fire  can  utterly  consume,  and  one  way  or  other  (with 
more  or  less  sujffering  to  himself,  but  with  certainty, 
as  I  believe),  it  will  be  fused  and  purified,  and  the 
wayward  youth  will  be  a  wise  and  generous  man. 


240  THOMAS    CAKLYLE. 

"  I  have  finished  my  sheet,  and  more  I  must  deny 
myself  at  present.  Will  you  get  these  tomes  con- 
veyed to  Badams,  mj  own  good  Badams,  whom  I 
swear  I  had  rather  see  than  any  ten  men  in  Eng- 
land ?  I  have  begged  of  him  to  write,  but  I  know 
he  will  not :  my  good  wishes  are  always  w^ith  him. 
From  you  I  expect  better  things,  being  minded  to 
become  a  better  correspondent  myself.  AVill  you 
make  my  kindest  compliments  to  Mr.  Montagu, 
and  all  your  household,  and  believe  me  ever,  my 
dear  madam, 

"  Your  affectionate  friend, 

"  T.  Caklyle." 

TO  B.W.  rROCTEE,  ESQ.,  25  BEDFORD  SQUARE,  LONDON. 
"  Edinburgh,  21  Comlet  Bank,  17tk  January ,  1828. 

"My  dear  Sir, — I  have  long  felt  that  I  owed 
you  a  letter  of  the  kindest  thanks :  yet  now  I  am 
not  intending  to  repay  you,  but  rather  to  increase 
my  debt  by  a  new  request  of  favors.  The  cjise  is 
this :  I  am,  since  yesterday,  a  candidate  for  the  Mor- 
al Philosophy  Professorship  in  the  University  of  St. 
Andrews,  soon  to  be  vacated  by  the  transferrence  of 
Dr.  Chalmers  to  Edinburgh ;  and  thus  my  task  for 
the  present  is  to  dun  all  such  of  my  friends  as  have 
a  literary  reputation  for  Testimonials  in  my  behalf. 
Considerable  support  in  tliis  way  I  can  promise  my- 
self, and,  except  in  this  way,  I  have  no  hope  of  any ; 


THOMAS  CAKLYLE.  241 

being  altogether  unconnected,  as  you  know,  either 
with  Church  or  State,  and,  at  all  events,  unfit  for  the 
dark  ways  of  political  intrigue,  which  too  often,  I 
am  sorry  to  own,  lead  safeliest  and  soonest  to  such 
a  goal  as  I  am  now  aiming  at.  However,  the  St. 
Andrews  Professors,  the  electors  to  this  office,  boast 
much  that  they  have  amended  their  ways ;  and,  un- 
der terror  of  the  late  Royal  Commission,  who  knows 
but  the  Melville  interest  may  have  ceased  to  be  om- 
nipotent there.  In  this  case  I  have  some  hope,  in 
any  other  case  little;  but  in  all  cases  happily  no 
great  degree  of  fear.  Meanwhile  the  business  is  to 
try,  and  try  with  my  whole  might,  since  I  have  en- 
tered on  the  enterprise.  Your  friend  Mr.  Jeffrey  is 
my  Palinnrus,  and  forwards  me  with  great  hearti- 
ness: I  may  also  reckon  on  the  warm  support  of 
Wilson,  Leslie,  Brewster,  and  other  men  of  mark  in 
this  city;  and  now  I  am  writing  to  London  for 
yours  and  Mr.  Montagu's.  If  you  and  he,  or  you 
yourself,  can  with  freedom  speak  any  word  in  my 
favor,  I  cannot  doubt  that  you  will  do  it  readily. 

"  Perhaps  you  will  tell  me  that  you  have  no  spe- 
cial judgment  in  matters  philosophic,  and  think 
within  yourself  that  any  skill  1  may  have  possessed 
in  this  province  must  have  been  kept  with  extreme 
secrecy,  during  our  acquaintance,  in  the  recesses  of 
my  own  consciousness.  It  were  now  too  late  to 
prove  the  error  of  these  opinions,  especially  the  lot- 

11 


242  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

ter ;  but  I  may  observe,  in  refutation,  that  it  is  not 
skill  in  Philosophy  alone,  but  general  talent,  and  all 
sorts  of  literary  gifts  that  come  into  play  here ;  in 
which  case,  who  is  better  entitled  to  speak  than 
'Barry  Cornwall,'  if  so  be  his  conscience  will  let 
him?  The  Editor  of  Bacon  will  be  another  name  of 
weight  in  a  professional  election:  may  I  count  on 
your  laying  this  matter  before  him,  and  Mrs.  Mon- 
tagu's friendly  intervention  in  inciting  him  to  act  ? 
I  would  have  written  to  him  in  particular;  but  why, 
thought  I,  two  letters  on  one  subject,  and  to  one 
house?  The  rather  that  I  am  busy  to  a  degree; 
for  though  the  business  may  not  be  settled  for  many 
months,  it  is  judged  important  by  my  friends  that  I 
should  produce  my  documents  without  delay.  Shall 
I  hope,  then,  to  ornament  my  little  list  w^ith  two 
other  names  ?  To  see  you,  an  English  Poet,  beside 
a  Scottish  one  and  a  German,  for  Goethe  also  is 
written  to?  I  believe  I  shall.  For  the  rest,  I  need 
give  you  no  directions  as  to  i\\Qfonn  of  your  Testi- 
monial ;  this  being  altogether  arbitrary,  equally  ef- 
fectual were  it  a  Letter  to  me,  or  a  Letter  to  the 
Principal  and  Professors  of  St.  Andrews,  or  a  general 
Testamur  directed  to  all  men  at  large.  Edward  Ir- 
ving, moreover,  knows  the  whole  matter,  and  can  ex- 
plain it  all  if  you  have  any  difficulty,  which,  however, 
you  will  not  have.  And  now  enough  of  this  poor 
business!  only  do  not  think  me  a  sorner  on  your 


TUOMAS   CAKLYLE.  243 

friendliness,  and  I  will  say  no  more  about  the  matter. 
Speak  for  me  also  to  Mr.  Montagu,  and  explain  to 
him  why  I  have  not  spoken  for  myself.  Do  I  not 
hereby  give  you  a  fall  jpower  of  attorney  /  and  for 
which  you  are  to  be  paid — in  wind-money,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Border ! 

"  What  do  I  not  owe  you  already  for  one  of  the 
kindest  and  most  pleasant  friends  I  ever  had ! 
Francis  Jeffrey  is  a  man  meant  by  ]N"aturc  to  be  an 
intellectual  Ariel,  with  a  light  etherealness  of  spirit 
which  the  weight  of  whole  Courts  of  Session  resting 
on  it  for  quarter-centuries  has  not  been  able  utterly 
to  suppress.  There  is  a  glance  in  the  eyes  of  the 
man  which  almost  prompts  you  to  take  him  in  your 
arms.  Alas  that  Mammon  should  be  able  to  hire 
such  servants,  even  though  they  continue  to  despise 
him! 

"And  where  are  you,  my  Friend?  What  is  be- 
come of  your  seven-stringed  shell  that  once  gave 
such  notes  of  melody?  Do  you  not  reckon  it  a  sin 
and  a  shame  to  bury  that  fine  sense,  that  truly 
Artist -spirit,  under  a  load  of  week-day  business? 
Ought  not  your  light  to  shine  before  men,  in  this 
season  of  dim  eclipse,  when  the  opaque  genius  of 
Utility  is  shedding  disastrous  twilight  over  half  the 
nations  ?  I  swear  that  I  will  never  forgive  you,  if 
you  keep  silence  long.  My  only  ground  of  patience 
is  that  you  are  lenU  festinans  ;  fusing  richer  ores  in 


24:4:  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

the  hidden  furnace,  that  they  may  be  cast  in  fairer 
moulds  of  purer  metal,  and  become  shapes  that  will 
endure  forever.  Positively  this  is  no  idle  talk,  but 
the  true  wish  and  feeling  of  my  heart,  growing 
clearer  to  me  and  clearer  the  longer  I  know  you. 
Remember  my  warning:  it  is  your  better  genius 
that  speaks  through  me. 

"  Do  you  ever  see  Mr.  Fraser  ?  and  why  lingers  his 
Beview  f  The  other  day  I  met  a  little  man,  whose 
eyes  sparkled  with  fire  in  speaking  of  it,  and  he 
wished  to  enlist  me  into  his  own  corps  on  the  other 
side :  I  answered  that,  like  Dugald  Dalgetty,  I  had 
taken  bounty  under  the  opposite  flag,  and  so  as  a 
true  soldado  could  not  leave  my  colors ;  under  which, 
however,  I  reckoned  myself  bound  to  fight  not  him, 
or  Gillies,  or  Cochrane,  but  the  Devil  (of  Stupidity), 
and  the  Devil  only.  Seeing  matters  take  this  turn, 
the  little  man's  eye  grew  soft,  and  he  left  me. 

"  What  is  this  periodical  of  Leigh  Hunt's  ?  and  have 
you  seen  that  wondrous  Life  of  Byron  ?  Was  it  not 
a  thousand  pities  Hunt  had  borrowed  money  of  tlie 
man  he  was  to  disinhume  and  behead  in  the  course 
of  duty  afterwards?  But  for  love  or  money  I  Can- 
not see  Hunt's  book,  or  anything  but  extracts  of  it, 
and  so  must  hold  my  tongue.  Poor  Hunt !  He  has 
a  strain  of  music  in  him  too,  but  poverty  and  vanity 
have  smote  too  rudely  over  the  strings.  To-day,  too, 
I  saw  De  Quincey :  alas,  poor  Yorick !    But  enough 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE,  245 

of  gossip  also,  in  which  I  deh'ght  more  than  I  can 
own  in  writing.  My  wife  sends  her  kind  regards  to 
you,  and  I  believe  would  prize  two  stanzas  of  your 
making  at  no  ordinary  rate.  Is  Mrs.  Procter  well 
and  safe  f  Alas !  it  was,  for  all  the  world,  such  a 
night  when  I  sat  with  you  in  Russell  Street  till  the 
ghost-hour,  and  forgot  that  Time  had  shoes  of  felt. 
These  times  and  places  are  all — away.  Will  Mrs. 
Montagu  accept  my  thanks  at  this  late  date  for  her 
so  kind  and  graceful  letter  %  Jane  would  have  writ- 
ten, but  was  making  silk  pelisses  and  cloth  pelisses, 
and  had  sempstresses,  white  and  black,  and  only  three 
days  ago  obtained  entire  dominion  over  Frost,  and 
marched  the  needle-women  out. 
"Adieu.     I  am  ever  yours, 

"  T.  Caelyle." 

TO  MKS.  MONTAGU,  25  BEDFOED  SQFAEE,  LONDON. 

"  Chaigenputtoch,  Dumfeies,  \2>tli  November,  1829. 

"  My  deae  Madam, — After  a  long  silence,  or  mere 
listening  with  indirect  replies,  I  again  address  you, 
and  on  the  humblest  possible  subject :  a  matter  of 
business,  relating  entirely  to  myself.  Why  I  trouble 
you  in  such  a  case,  your  helpfulness  in  past  times 
and  constant  readiness  to  do  me  service  will  suffi- 
ciently explain.  At  the  end  of  your  last  letter  there 
occurs  a  little  incidental  notice  of  some  opening  for 
a  medical  man  in  Warwick,  coupled  with  an  advice 


246  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

from  Badams  that  it  miglit  be  worth  mj  brother's 
attention.  I^ow  it  so  chances  that  to  my  brother,  at 
this  season,  this  announcement  is  of  all  others  the 
most  interesting.  The  worthy  Doctor  has  crammed 
himself  with  all  manner  of  Scottish,  English,  and 
Continental  Science  in  this  department;  and,  ever 
since  his  return,  has  been  straining  his  eyes  to  dis- 
cover some  spot  where  he  might  turn  it  to  some 
account  for  himself  and  others ;  manifesting  in  the 
meanwhile  not  a  little  impatience  that  no  such  spot 
was  to  be  found,  but  that  Fate  should  inthrall  free 
Physic,  and  condemn  so  bright  a  candle  to  burn  alto- 
gether under  a  bushel.  On  our  return  from  Edin- 
burgh I  transmitted  him  your  tidings,  on  which  he 
wrote  instantly  to  Badams  for  further  information ; 
wrote  also  to  me  that  he  thought  the  outlook  highly 
promising ;  and,  in  fine,  this  night,  has  ridden  up 
hither,  some  five-and-thirty  miles  (from  Scotsbrig)  to 
take  counsel  with  me  on  the  subject,  and  lament  that 
Badams  has  given  him  no  answer.  My  petition, 
therefore,  is  that  you  would  have  the  goodness  to 
help  the  honest  adventurer  in  this  affair,  and  pro- 
cure for  him,  by  such  ways  as  lie  open  to  you,  what 
light  can  be  had  in  regard  to  the  actual,  practical  as- 
pect it  presents.  My  own  opinion  is  that  a  very 
little  encouragement  would  bring  the  man  to  War- 
wick, for  he  is  fond  of  England,  and  utterly  wearied 
of  idleness,  SLS  passiveness  at  his  age  may  with  little 


THOMAS   CARLYLE.  247 

injustice  be  named.  My  devout  prayer,  too,  has  long 
been  that  he  were  settled  somewhere,  with  any  ra- 
tional prospect ;  for  lie  has  a  real  solidity,  both  of 
talent  and  character,  as  I  judge,  and  wants  nothing 
but  Action  to  make  him  a  very  sufficient  fellow. 
Do,  pray,  therefore,  help  the  embryo  Hippocrates  a 
little,  if  you  can !  He  will  wait  here  some  eight 
days,  in  expectation  of  your  writing,  and  perhaps  also 
persuading  Badams  to  write :  nay,  at  any  time  I  can 
forward  the  news  to  him  into  Annandale  within  a 
week  of  their  arrival.  Write  what  you  know  with- 
out apprehension  of  consequences :  honest  Jack  risks 
little  by  any  such  adventure,  having  little  save  a 
clear  head  and  a  stout  honest  heart,  which  are  not  so 
easily  lost  and  won.  For  my  own  share,  I,  too,  am 
getting  fond  of  Warwick :  it  is  in  the  heart  of  Old 
England,  whither  I  should  then  have  a  pretext  for 
coming ;  nay,  it  is  within  a  day's  journey  of  London, 
where,  among  other  wondrous  things,  there  is  *  a  25 
Bedford  Square.' 

"  You  are  not  to  account  this  a  Letter,  but  only  a 
sort  of  commercial  Message,  a  Man-of -Business  Com- 
mission. '  Do  you  know,  Mr. ,'  said  John  Wil- 
son once,  in  my  hearing,  to  a  noted  writer  to  the 
Signet,  proud  enough  of  his  Signet  honors,  *  there  is 
nothinoj  in  nature  that  I  detest  so  much  as  a  Man  of 
Business.'  He  of  the  Signet  had  imagined  himself 
high  in  the  other's  good  graces,  and  now  of  a  sud- 


248  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

den  saw  himself  quite  stranded,  and  left  alone  on  the 
beach. 

"I  am  thinking  to  take  the  Correspondence  witli 
you  out  of  my  wife's  hands,  so  languidly  does  she 
manage  it ;  and  of  old  times  it  was  altogether  mine. 
I  know  not  that  I  have  yet  found,  or  shall  ever  find, 
any  correspondent  to  replace  you. 

"  You  will  kindly  remember  me  to  Mr.  Procter 
and  his  lady,  in  whose  welfare  I  must  always  feel  a 
friend's  interest.  This  is  not  altogether  '  words,'  and 
yet  what  more  can  I  make  it? 

"  Assure  Mr.  Montagu  that  his  book  was  the  most 
delightful  I  have  read  for  many  days.  Your  hand 
also  was  often  visible  in  it.  "Why  does  he  not  pub- 
lish more  such  ?  I  have  got  old  Ascham,  and  read  a 
little  of  him,  when  I  have  done  work,  every  evening. 
Do  you  ever  see  Edward  Irving  ?  He  stretched  him- 
self out  here  on  the  moors,  under  the  free  sky,  for 
one  day  beside  me,  and  was  the  same  honest  soul  as 
of  old.  Badams  will  not  write  to  me,  I  know,  but 
some  day  I  will  see  him  and  make  him  speak. 

"  Believe  me  ever,  my  dear  madam, 
"  Your  affectionate  friend, 

"Thomas  Caelyle." 


THOMAS   CABLYLE.  249 


TO  MES.  MONTAGU,  25  BEDFOKD  SQUAEE,  LONDON". 
*'Craigenpcttoch,  27th  October^  1830. 

"My  dear  Feiend, — While  I  wait  in  the  confi- 
dent though  somewhat  unaccountably  deferred  an- 
ticipation of  a  kind  answer  from  you  to  a  kind  mes- 
sage, come  tidings  to  my  wife  that  such  message  is 
still  only  looked  for  '  through  the  portal  of  Hope ;' 
in  plain  prose,  that  my  last  letter  has  lost  its  way,  did 
not  reach,  and  now  never  will  reach,  you !  This  is 
the  more  singular,  as  the  like  never  happened  in  my 
past  experience,  and  now,  as  indeed  misfortune  usu- 
ally does,  comes  doubly.  Much  about  the  time  w^hen 
I  wrote  your  letter,  I  despatched  another  to  Weimar : 
and  here  on  the  same  AVednesday  night  arrive,  side 
by  side,  two  announcements,  from  you  and  from 
Goethe,  that  both  letters  have  miscarried  !  Goethe's 
I  have  satisfactorily  traced  to  the  post-office,  and 
liope  there  may  have  been  some  oblivion  on  the  part 
of  my  venerable  correspondent;  neither  is  this, 
though  less  likely,  in  your  case,  a  quite  impossible 
supposition.  At  all  events,  true  it  is  that,  some  two 
months  ago  I  did  actually  write  you  a  most  densely 
filled  letter,  one  which  if  it  did  me  any  justice  must 
have  been  filled,  moreover,  with  the  friendliest  sen- 
timents. I  can  still  recollect  of  it  that  I  entreated 
earnestly  you  would  never  forget  me,  would  from 
time  to  time  send  me  notice  of  your  good  or  evil 

11* 


250  THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

fortune,  though  I  myself  (for  lack  of  historical  inci- 
dent in  these  solitudes)  were  silent,  assuring  you,  of 
what  is  still  true,  that  /was  nowise  of  the  forgetting 
species,  but  blessed  or  burdened  with  one  of  your 
perennial  memories,  and  a  hard  and  stony  heart, 
whereon  truly  only  diamonds  would  write ;  but  the 
Love-charm  and  Think-of-me  once  written  stood  in- 
effaceable, defying  all  time  and  weather.  Such  state- 
ment, whereof  I  could  make  an  affidavit  were  it 
needful,  will  be  a  light  for  you  to  explain  several 
things ;  above  all,  will  absolve  from  the  crime  of  in- 
difference and  negligence,  which  crime  towards  you, 
at  least,  it  will  be  forever  impossible  for  me  to  fall 
into.  Believe  this,  for  it  is  morally  and  even  phys- 
iologically true. 

"  We  hear  with  real  sorrow  of  the  domestic  mis- 
chances that  come  upon  you ;  from  which,  in  this 
world,  no  wisdom  will  secure  us. 

"  Happily  the  consciousness  you  mention  is  a  bul- 
wark which  keeps  our  inward  citadel,  or  proper  Self, 
unharmed,  unimpregnable,  whatever  havoc  there 
may  be  in  the  outworks.  Let  us  study  to  maintain 
this,  and  let  those  others  go  their  way,  which,  indeed, 
is  natural  for  them.  "When  I  think  of  the  miserable 
A.  and  of  many  like  him,  I  could  feel  as  if  our  old 
fathers  who  believed  in  witchcraft  and  Possession 
were  nearer  the  truth  than  we. 

"It  is  strange  how  vice,  like  a  poisonous  ingredient 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  251 

thrown  into  some  fermenting  mixture,  will,  in  small 
beginnings,  seize  on  the  young  heart,  and  proceed 
there,  tainting,  enlarging,  till  the  whole  soul,  and 
all  the  universe  it  holds,  is  blackened,  blasted,  rent 
asunder  with  it,  and  the  man  that  walked  in  the 
midst  of  ns  is  clutched,  as  it  were,  by  some  unseen 
devil,  and  hurled  into  abysses  of  Despair  and  Mad- 
ness, Avhich  lie  closer  than  we  think  on  the  path  of 
every  one.  Let  us  hope  (for  this  is  the  Place  of 
Hope)  that  for  himself  reformation  is  still  possible ; 
that,  at  least  and  worst,  to  the  friends  that  cannot 
save  him,  his  future  misdoings  will  be  harmless. 

"  Poor  Hazlitt !  He,  too,  is  one  of  the  victims  to 
the  Moloch  Spirit  of  this  Time — a  Time  when  Self- 
ishness and  Baseness,  dizened  out  with  rouge  and 
a  little  theatrical  frippery,  has  fearlessly  seated  her- 
self on  high  places,  and  preaches  forth  her  Creed  of 
Profit  and  Loss  as  the  last  Gospel  for  men ;  when 
tlie  thing  that  calls  itself  God's  Church  is  a  den  of 
Unclean  Beasts,  from  which  the  honest-hearted  turns 
away  w^ith  loathing ;  when,  between  the  Utilitarians 
and  the  Millenarians,  and  the  dense  dust  and  vapor 
they  have  raised  up,  the  Temple  of  the  Universe  has 
become  to  the  most  invisible;  and  the  devout  spirit 
that  will  not  blind  itself  cannot  worship,  and  knows 
not  what  or  how  to  worship,  and  so  wanders  in  aim- 
less pilgrimages,  and  lives  without  God  in  the  world ! 
In  Hazlitt,  as  in  Byron  and  Burns  and  so  many  others 


252  THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

in  their  degree,  there  lay  some  tone  of  the  '  eternal 
melodies,' which  he  could  not  fashion  into  terres- 
trial music,  but  which  uttered  itself  only  in  harsh 
jarriugs  and  inarticulate  cries  of  pain.  Poor  Haz- 
litt!  There  is  one  star  less  in  the  heavens,  though 
a  twinkling,  dimmed  one;  while  the  street-lamps 
and  horn  lanterns  are  all  burning,  with  their  whale- 
oil  or  coal  gas,  as  before  !  These  the  street  passen- 
ger and  drayman  and  bearer  of  burden  will  prize  and 
bless ;  but  in  the  lonely  journeys  and  far  voyages  (of 
Thought)  the  traveller  will  miss  the  other. 

"  I  should  give  you  some  glimpse  into  our  way  of 
life  here,  but  know  not  how  in  such  compass  to  do 
it.  A  strange  contrast  it  must  be  to  yours.  If  Lon- 
don is  the  noisiest,  busiest  spot  on  the  earth,  this  is 
about  the  stillest  and  most  solitary.  The  road  hither 
ends  at  our  house :  to  see  a  lime-cart  or  market-cart 
struggling  along  the  broken  moor,  till  it  reach  gravel 
and  wheel-ruts,  and  scent  the  Dominion  of  Commerce 
from  afar,  is  an  incident  which,  especially  in  winter, 
we  almost  mark  in  our  journals.  In  this  meek,  pale 
sunshine  of  October,  in  this  grave-like  silence,  there 
is  something  ghostly ;  were  it  not  that  our  meadows 
are  of  peat-bog  and  not  of  asphodel,  and  our  hearts 
too  full  of  earthly  passions  and  cares,  you  might 
fancy  it  the  abode  of  spirits,  not  of  men  and  fleecy 
or  hairy  cattle.  I  have  a  rough  broken  path  along 
the  neighboring  hill-side,  two  miles  in  length,  where 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE. 

I  take  a  walk  (sometimes  as  I  would  take  physic) 
and  see  over  Ayrshire  and  Galloway,  far  and  wide, 
nothing  but  granite  mountains  and  idle  moors ;  save 
that  here  and  there  the  cottage  trees  and  smoke,  with 
its  patch  of  cornfield  painfully  won  from  the  desert, 
indicate  that  man's  two  hands  are  there,  who,  like  the 
cony,  has  built  himself  a  nest  in  the  rocks.  On  the 
whole,  an  original  scene  for  studying  in.  Private  as 
heart  could  wish ;  and  possessing  in  this  one  thought, 
that  it  positively  is  a  scene,  and  dates  since  the  day 
when  Eternity  became  Time,  and  was  created  by 
God — the  source,  could  one  but  draw  from  it,  of 
innumerable,  inexhaustiblje  others.  Here,  truly,  is 
the  place  for  thinking,  if  you  have  any  faculty  that 
way.  Since  I  came  hither  I  have  seen  into  various 
things.  In  my  wife,  too,  I  have  the  clearest,  most 
Scotch-logical,  yet  the  eagerest  Disciple  and  Convert. 
For  the  rest,  I  read  and  write  and  smoke  assiduously, 
as  I  was  wont :  one  day  I  hope  to  give  you  one  of 
the  most  surprising  hoohs  you  have  met  with  lately. 
Am  I  happy  ?  My  theory  was  and  is  that  the  man 
who  cannot  be  happy  (as  happy  as  is  needful)  where- 
soever God's  sky  overspans  him,  and  men  forbear  to 
beat  him  with  bludgeons,  deserves  to  be,  and  will 
always  be,  what  one  calls  miserable.  iN'evertheless, 
we  are  coming  to  London,  so  soon  as  the  yet  clearly 
audible  prohibition  of  Destiny  is  withdrawn.  "Will 
it  be  this  winter  ?    Full  glad  were  I  too  think  so ; 


254  THOMAS   CAELYLE. 

but  there  are  sad  shakings  of  the  liead.  "We  had  the 
Jeffreys  lately ;  the  Jeffrey  a  more  interesting  and 
better  man,  a  sadder  and  a  wiser,  than  I  had  ever 
seen  him.  That  he  missed  you  was  no  oversight  on 
his  part,  but  ignorance  that  it  would  not  be  an  intru- 
sion. 

"  He  looked  to  Mr.  Procter,  and  Mr.  Procter  spake 
not.  The  like  will  not  occur  a  second  time.  Such 
a  visit  here,  of  which  we  rejoice  in  one  or  two  per- 
haps yearl}'^,  is  a  true  '  Illumination  with  the  finest 
Transparencies ;'  next  night,  indeed,  comes  our  own 
still  candle,  and  the  past  splendor  is  gone  like  a 
dream,  but  not  the  memory  of  it,  nor  the  hope  of 
its  return.  With  Goethe  I  am  more  contented  the 
longer  I  know  him ;  hard  as  adamant  towards  outer 
fortune,  yet  with  the  spirit  of  a  prophet  within,  and 
the  softest  all-embracing  heart. 

"  He  is  to  me  the  most  venerable  man  now  extant, 
surely  the  only  literary  man  whom,  amid  all  my 
respect,  my  admiration,  I  can  view  without  a  con- 
siderable admixture  of  contempt.  He  tells  me  yester- 
day to  write  soon,  '  for  days  and  weeks  are  growing 
more  and  more  precious  to  him.' 

"  God  keep  that  day  long  distant !  I  must  add 
this  other  passage  for  the  piece  of  news  it  brings. 
Take  it  in  the  original  too. 

^''Ein  talentcoller  junger  Mann  und  glucldicher 
Uebersetzer  heschdftigt  sich  mit  Burns  :  wh  hin  dar- 


THOMAS   CAKLYLE.  255 

auf  sehr  verlangencV  '  A  talented  young  man  and 
successful  Translator  is  busy  with  Buens  :  I  am 
very  curious  for  the  issue.'  You  must  thank  Mr. 
Montagu  for  his  book  on  laughter,  which  I  have 
read  with  pleasure:  the  other  book  (of  Extracts)  my 
mother  has  borrowed,  and  eagerly  begs  to  keep  for 
a  second  and  a  third  perusal :  it  is  among  tlie  best 
books  she  ever  saw,  worthy  whole  cartloads  of  their 
new  ware.  For  poetry  (not  mere  rhyme  and  rant 
or  else  elegance),  a  Scotch  reviewer  is  probably  the 
blindest  of  created  tilings;  but  in  a  Scotch  peasant 
there  is  sometimes  life,  and  a  soul  of  God's  making. 
My  own  impression  is  that  Nature  is  still  active,  and 
that  we  are  all  alive  did  we  but  know  it ! — God  bless 
you.     I  am  ever  yours,  T.  Carlyle. 

"My  brother  speaks  with  warmest  gratitude  of 
your  and  Mr.  Montagu's  kindness.  Such  friends  in 
such  a  course  as  his  are  indeed  invaluable.  I  too 
am  doubly  your  debtor  for  the  maternal  charge  yon 
take  of  my  poor  Doctor,  whose  posture  in  that  wild 
chaos  often  fills  me  with  misgivings.  Will  Mr. 
Procter,  with  his  bright  kind  Lady,  who  is  still 
strangely  present  with  me,  be  pleased  to  know  that 
I  think  of  them?" 


THE    END. 


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